Class 
Book 



NARRATIVES 

OF THE SUFFERINGS OF 

LEWIS, AND' MILTON CLARKE, 

SONS OF A SOLDIER OF THE REVOLUTION, 



DURING- A 



CAPTIVITY OF MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS 



AMONG THE 



SLAVEHOLDERS OF KENTUCKY, 



ONE OF THE 



80 CALLED CHRISTIAN STATES OF NORTH AMERICA, 



DICTATED BY THEMSELVES, 



BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED BY BELA MARSH, 

NO. 25 CORNHILL. 

1846. 



All Orders to be sent to the Publisher. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by 
Lewis and Milton Clarke, in the Clerk's Office of the District 
Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



0. C. Public Ubray 
OCT 1 5 1934 



PREFACE. 



I first became acquainted with Lewis Clarke in 
December, 1842. I well remember the deep impres- 
sion made upon my mind on hearing his Narrative 
from his own lips. It gave me a new and more vivid 
impression of the wrongs of Slavery than I had ever 
before felt. Evidently a person of good native talents 
and of deep sensibilities, such a mind had been under 
the dark cloud of slavery for more than twenty-five 
years. Letters, reading, all the modes of thought 
awakened by them, had been utterly hid from his 
eyes ; and yet his mind had evidently been active, and 
trains of thought were flowing through it which he 
was utterly unable to express. I well remember, too, 
the wave on wave of deep feeling excited in an audience 
of more than a thousand persons, at Hallowell, Me., as 
they listened to his story, and looked upon his energetic 
and manly countenance, and wondered if the dark 
cloud of slavery could cover up — hide from the world, 
and degrade to the condition of brutes — such immortal 
minds. His story, there and wherever since told, has 
aroused the most utter abhorrence of the Slave System. 

For the last two years, I have had the most ample 
opportunity of becoming acquainted with Mr. Clarke. 
He has made this place his home, when not engaged 
in giving to public audiences the story of his sufferings 
and the sufferings of his fellow-slaves. Soon after he 
came to Ohio, by the faithful instruction of pious friends, 
he was led, as he believes, to see himself a sinner 



4 



PREFACE. 



before God, and to seek pardon and forgiveness through 
the precious blood of the Lamb. He has ever mani- 
fested an ardent thirst for religious, as well as for other 
kinds of knowledge. In the opinion of all those best 
acquainted with him, he has maintained the character 
of a sincere Christian. That he is what he professes 
to be, — a slave escaped from the grasp of avarice and 
power, — there is not the least shadow of doubt. His 
Narrative bears the most conclusive internal evidence 
of its truth. Persons of discriminating minds have 
heard it repeatedly, under a great variety of circum- 
stances, and the story, in all substantial respects, has 
been always the same. He has been repeatedly recog- 
nized in the Free States, by persons who knew him in 
Kentucky, when a slave. During the summer of 1844, 
Cassius M. Clay visited Boston, and, on seeing Milton 
Clarke, recognized him as one of the Clarke family, 
well known to him in Kentucky. Indeed, nothing can 
be more surely established than the fact that Lewis 
and Milton Clarke are no impostors. For three years 
they have been engaged in telling their story in seven 
or eight different states, and no one has appeared to 
make an attempt to contradict them. The capture of 
Milton in Ohio, by the kidnappers, as a slave, makes 
assurance doubly strong. Wherever they have told 
their story, large audiences have collected, and every 
where they have been listened to with great interest 
and satisfaction. 

Cyrus is fully equal to either of the brothers in 
sprightliness of mind — is withal a great wit, and 
would make an admirable lecturer, but for an unfor- 
tunate impediment in his speech. They all feel deeply 
the wrongs they have suffered, and are by no means 
forgetful of their brethren in bonds. When Lewis first 
came to this place, he was frequently noticed in silent 
and deep meditation. On being asked what he was 
thinking of, he would reply, " O, of the poor slaves ! 



PREFACE. 



5 



Here I am free, and they suffering so much." Bitter 
tears are often seen coursing down his manly cheeks, 
as he recurs to the scenes of his early suffering. Many 
persons, who have heard him lecture, have expressed 
a strong desire that his story might be recorded in a 
connected form. He has, therefore, concluded to have 
it printed. He was anxious to spread the story of his 
sufferings as extensively as possible before the com- 
munity, that he might awaken more hearts to feel for 
his down-trodden brethren. Nothing seems to grieve 
him to the heart, like finding a minister of the gospel, 
or a professed Christian, indifferent to the condition of 
the slave. As to doing much for the instruction of the 
minds of the slaves, or for the salvation of their souls, 
till they are emancipated, restored to the rights of 
men, in his opinion it is utterly impossible. 

When the master, or his representative, the man 
who justifies slaveholding, comes with the whip in one 
hand and the Bible in the other, the slave says, at least 
in his heart, Lay down one or the other. Either make 
the tree good and the fruit good, or else both corrupt 
together. Slaves do not believe that the religion 
which is from God, bears whips and chains. They 
ask, emphatically, concerning their Father in heaven, 

" Has He bid you buy and sell us ; 

Speaking from his throne, the sky ? " 

For the facts contained in the following Narrative, 
Mr. Clarke is of course alone responsible. Yet, having 
had the most ample opportunities for testing his accu- 
racy, I do not hesitate to say, that 1 have not a shadow 
of doubt but in all material points every word is true. 
Much of it is in his own language, and all of it accord- 
ing to his own dictation. 

J. C. Lovejoy. 

Cambridgeport, April, 1845. 

i * 



NARRATIVE OF LEWIS CLARKE. 



I was born in March, as near as I can ascertain, 
in the year 1815, in Madison county, Kentucky, 
about seven miles from Richmond, upon the planta- 
tion of my grandfather, Samuel Campbell. He was 
considered a very respectable man, among his fellow- 
robbers, the slaveholders. It did not render him less 
honorable in their eyes, that he took to his bed Mary, 
his slave, perhaps half white, by whom he had one 
daughter, Letitia Campbell. This was before his 
marriage. 

My father was from " beyond the flood " — from 
Scotland, and by trade a weaver. He had been mar- 
ried in his own country, and lost his wife, who left to 
him, as I have been told, two sons. He came to this 
country in time to be in the earliest scenes of the 
American revolution. He was at the battle of Bun- 
ker Hill, and continued in the army to the close of 
the war. About the year 1800, or before, he came 
to Kentucky, and married Miss Letitia Campbell, 
then held as a slave by her dear and affectionate 
father. My father died, as near as I can recollect, 
when I was about ten or twelve years of age. He 



s 



NARRATIVE OF 



had received a wound in the war, which made him 
lame as long as he lived. I have often heard him 
tell of Scotland, sing the merry songs of his native 
land, and long to see its hills once more. 

Mr. Campbell promised my father that his daughter 
Letitia should be made free in his will. It was with 
this promise that he married her. And I have no 
doubt that Mr. Campbell was as good as his word, 
and that, by his will, my mother and her nine chil- 
dren were made free. But ten persons in one family, 
each worth three hundred dollars, are not easily set 
free among those accustomed to live by continued 
robbery. We did not, therefore, by an instrument 
from the hand of the dead, escape the avaricious grab 
of the slaveholder. It is the common belief that the 
will was destroyed by the heirs of Mr. Campbell. 

The night in which I was born, I have been told, 
was dark and terrible — black as the night for which 
Job prayed, when he besought the clouds to pitch 
their tent round about the place of his birth ; and 
my life of slavery was but too exactly prefigured by 
the stormy elements that hovered over the first hour 
of my being. It was with great difficulty that any 
one could be urged out for a necessary attendant for 
my mother. At length, one of the sons of Mr. 
Campbell, William, by the promise from his mother 
of the child that should be born, was induced to 
make an effort to obtain the necessary assistance. By 
going five or six miles, he obtained a female pro- 
fessor of the couch. 

William Campbell, by virtue of this title, always 
claimed me as his property. And well would it have 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



9 



been for me if this claim had been regarded. At the 
- age of six or seven years, I fell into the hands of his 
sister, Mrs. Betsey Banton, whose character will be 
best known when I have told the horrid wrongs 
which she heaped upon me for ten years. If there 
are any she spirits that come up from hell, and take 
possession of one part of mankind, I am sure she is 
one of that sort. I was consigned to her under the 
following circumstances : When she was married, 
there was given her, as part of her dower, as is 
common among the Algerines of Kentucky, a girl, 
by the name of Ruth, about fourteen or fifteen years 
old. In a short time, Ruth was dejected and injured, 
by beating and abuse of different kinds, so that she 
was sold, for a half-fool, to the more tender mercies 
of the sugar-planter in Louisiana. The amiable Mrs. 
Betsey obtained then, on loan from her parents, an- 
other slave, named Phillis. In six months she had 
suffered so severely, under the hand of this monster- 
woman, that she made an attempt to kill herself, and 
was taken home by the parents of Mrs. Banton. This 
produced a regular slaveholding family brawl ; a 
regular war, of four years, between the mild and 
peaceable Mrs. B. and her own parents. These wars 
are very common among the Algerines in Kentucky ; 
indeed, slaveholders have not arrived at that degree 
of civilization that enables them to live in tolerable 
peace, though united by the nearest family ties. In 
them is fulfilled what I have heard read in the Bible — 
" The father is against the son, and the daughter-in- 
law against the mother-in-law, and their foes are of 
their own household." Some of the slaveholders 



10 



NARRATIVE OF 



may have a wide house ; but one of the cat-handed, 
snake-eyed, brawling women, which slavery produces, 
can fill it from cellar to garret. I have heard every 
place I could get into any way ring with their 
screech-owl voices. Of all the animals on the face 
of this earth, I am most afraid of a real mad, pas- 
sionate, raving, slaveholding woman. Somebody 
told me, once, that Edmund Burke declared that the 
natives of India fled to the jungles, among tigers and 
lions, to escape the more barbarous cruelty of War- 
ren Hastings. I am sure I would sooner lie down to 
sleep by the side of tigers than near a raging-mad 
slave woman. But I must go back to sweet Mrs. 
Banton. I have been describing her in the abstract. 
I will give a full-grown portrait of her right away. 
For four years after the trouble about Phillis she 
never came near her father's house. At the end of 
this period, another of the amiable sisters was to be 
married, and sister Betsey could not repress the tide 
of curiosity urging her to be present at the nuptial 
ceremonies. Beside, she had another motive. Either 
shrewdly suspecting that she might deserve less than 
any member of the family, or that some ungrounded 
partiality would be manifested toward her sister, she 
determined, at all hazards, to be present, and see that 
the scales which weighed out the children of the 
plantation should be held with even hand. The wed- 
ding-day was appointed ; the sons and daughters of 
this joyful occasion were gathered together, and then 
came also the fair-faced, but black-hearted, Mrs. B. 
Satan, among the sons of God, was never less wel- 
come, than this fury among her kindred. They all 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



11 



knew what she came for, — to make mischief, if pos- 
sible, ft Well, now, if there aint Bets ! " exclaimed 
the old lady. The father was moody and silent, 
knowing that she inherited largely of the disposition 
of her mother ; but he had experienced too many of 
her retorts of courtesy to say as much, for dear ex- 
perience had taught him the discretion of silence. 
The brothers smiled at the prospect of fun and frolic ; 
the sisters trembled for fear, and word flew round 
among the slaves, " The old she-bear has come home ! 
look out ! look out ! " 

The wedding went forward. Polly, a very good 
sort of a girl to be raised in that region, was married, 
and received, as the first instalment of her dower, a 
girl and a boy. Now was the time for Mrs. Banton, 
sweet, good Mrs. Banton. " Poll has a girl and a 
boy, and I only had that fool of a girl. I reckon, if I 
go home without a boy too, this house wont be left 
standing." 

This was said, too, while the sugar of the wedding- 
cake was yet melting upon her tongue. How the 
bitter words would flow when the guests had retired, 
all began to imagine. To arrest this whirlwind of 
rising passion, her mother promised any boy upon the 
plantation, to be taken home on her return. Now, my 
evil star was right in the top of the sky. Every boy 
was ordered in, to pass before this female sorceress, 
that she might select a victim for her unprovoked 
malice, and on whom to pour the vials of her wrath 
for years. I was that unlucky fellow. Mr. Campbell, 
my grandfather, objected, because it would divide a 
family, and offered her Moses, whose father and 



I 



NARRATIVE OF 



mother had been sold south. Mrs. Campbell put in 
for William's claim, dated ante natum — before I was 
born ; but objections and claims of every kind were 
swept away by the wild passion and shrill-toned voice 
of Mrs. B. Me she would have, and none else. Mr. 
Campbell went out to hunt, and drive away bad 
thoughts ; the old lady became quiet, for she was 
sure none of her blood run in my veins, and, if there 
was any of her husband's there, it was no fault of 
hers. Slave women are always revengeful toward 
the children of slaves that have any of the blood of 
their husbands in them. I was too young, only seven 
years of age, to understand what was going on. But 
my poor and affectionate mother understood and ap- 
preciated it all. When she left the kitchen of the 
mansion-house, where she was employed as cook, and 
came home to her own little cottage, the tear of an- 
guish was in her eye, and the image of sorrow upon 
every feature of her face. She knew the female 
Nero, whose rod was now to be over me. That night 
sleep departed from her eyes. With the youngest 
child clasped firmly to her bosom, she spent the night 
in walking the floor, coming ever and anon to lift up 
the clothes and look at me and my poor brother, 
who lay sleeping together. Sleeping, I said. Brother 
slept, but not I. I saw my mother when she first 
came to me, and I could not sleep. The vision of that 
night — its deep, ineffaceable impression — is now 
before my mind with all the distinctness of yesterday. 
In the morning, I was put into the carriage with Mrs. 
B. and her children, and my weary pilgrimage of 
suffering was fairly begun. It was her business on 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



13 



the road, for about twenty-five or thirty miles, to in- 
itiate her children into the art of tormenting their 
new victim. I was seated upon the bottom of the 
carriage, and these little imps were employed in 
pinching me, pulling my ears and hair ; and they 
were stirred up by their mother, like a litter of young 
wolves, to torment me in every way possible. In the 
mean time, I was compelled by the old she-wolf to 
call them " Master," " Mistress," and bow to them, 
and obey them at the first call. 

During that day, I had, indeed, no very agreeable 
foreboding of the torments to come ; but, sad as were 
my anticipations, the reality was infinitely beyond 
them. Infinitely more bitter than death were the 
cruelties I experienced at the hand of this merciless 
woman. Save from one or two slaves on the planta- 
tion, during my ten years of captivity here, I scarcely 
heard a kind word, or saw a smile toward me from 
any living being. And now that I am where people 
look kind, and act kindly toward me, it seems like a 
dream. I hardly seem to be in the same world that 
I was then. When I first got into the free states, 
and saw every body look like they loved one another, 
sure enough, I thought, this must be the " Heaven" 
of Love I had heard something about. But I must 
go back to what I suffered from that wicked woman. 
It is hard work to keep the mind upon it ; I hate to 
think it over — but I must tell it — the world must 
know what is done in Kentucky. I cannot, however, 
tell all the ways by which she tormented me. I can 
only give a few instances of my suffering, as speci- 
mens of the whole. A book of a thousand pages 
2 



14 NARRATIVE OF» 

would not be large enough to tell of all the tears I 
shed, and the sufferings endured, in that ten years 

OF PURGATORY. 

A very trivial offence was sufficient to call forth a 
great burst of indignation from this woman of un- 
governed passions. In my simplicity, I put my lips 
to the same vessel, and drank out of it, from which 
her children were accustomed to drink. She ex- 
pressed her utter abhorrence of such an act, by 
throwing my head violently back, and dashing into 
my face two dippers of water. The shower of water 
was followed by a heavier shower of kicks; yes, 
delicate reader, this lady did not hesitate to kick, as 
well as cuff in a very plentiful manner ; but the 
words, bitter and cutting, that followed, were like a 
storm of hail upon my young heart. " She would 
teach me better manners than that ; she would let 
me know I was to be brought up to her hand ; she 
would have one slave that knew his place ; if I wanted 
water, go to the spring, and not drink there in the 
house." This was new times for me ; for some 
days I was completely benumbed with my sorrow. I 
could neither eat nor sleep. If there is any human 
being on earth, who has been so blessed as never to 
have tasted the cup of sorrow, and therefore is una- 
ble to conceive of suffering ; if there be one so lost 
to all feeling as even to say, that the slaves do not 
suffer when families are separated, let such a one 
go to the ragged quilt which was my couch and pil- 
low, and stand there night after night, for long, weary 
hours, and see the bitter tears streaming down the 
face of that more than orphan boy, while, with half- 



LEWIS CLARKE, 



15 



suppressed sighs and sobs, he calls again and again 
upon his absent mother. 

" Say, mother, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed ? 
Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son ? 
Wretch even then ! life's journey just begun." 

Let him stand by that couch of bitter sorrow through 
the terribly lonely night, and then wring out the wet 
end of those rags, and see how many tears yet remain, 
after the burning temples had absorbed all they could. 
He will not doubt, he cannot doubt, but the slave has 
feeling. But I find myself running away again from 
Mrs. Banton — and I don't much wonder neither. 

There were several children in the family, and my 
first main business was to wait upon them. Another 
young slave and myself have often been compelled to 
sit up by turns all night, to rock the cradle of a little, 
peevish scion of slavery. If the cradle was stopped, 
the moment they awoke a dolorous cry was sent forth 
to mother or father, that Lewis had gone to sleep. 
The reply to this call would be a direction from the 
mother for these petty tyrants to get up and take the 
whip, and give the good-for-nothing scoundrel a smart 
whipping. This was the midnight pastime of a child 
ten or twelve years old. What might you expect of 
the future man? 

There were four house-slaves in this family, in- 
cluding myself; and though we had not, in all respects, 
so hard work as the field hands, yet in many things 
our condition was much worse. We were constantly 
exposed to the whims and passions of every member 
of the family; from the least to the greatest, their 



10 



NARRATIVE OF 



anger was wreaked upon us. Nor was our life an 
easy one, in the hours of our toil or in the amount 
of labor performed. We were always required to sit 
up until all the family had retired ; then we must be 
up at early dawn in summer, and before day in win- 
ter. If we failed, through weariness or for any other 
reason, to appear at the first morning summons, we 
were sure to have our hearing quickened by a severe 
chastisement. Such horror has seized me, lest I 
might not hear the first shrill call, that I have often 
in dreams fancied I heard that unwelcome voice, and 
have leaped from my couch, and walked through the 
house and out of it before I awoke. I have gone and 
called the other slaves, in my sleep, and asked them 
if they did not hear master call. Never, while I live, 
will the remembrance of those long, bitter nights of 
fear pass from my mind. 

But I want to give you a few specimens of the 
abase which I received. Daring the ten years that I 
lived with Mrs. Banton, I do not think there were as 
many days, when she was at home, that I, or some 
other slave, did not receive some kind of beating or 
abuse at her hands. It seemed as though she could 
not live nor sleep unless some poor back was smart- 
ing, some head beating with pain, or some eye filled 
with tears, around her. Her tender mercies were 
indeed cruel. She brought up her children to imitate 
her example. Two of them manifested some dislike 
to the cruelties taught them by their mother, but they 
never stood high in favor with her ; indeed, any thing 
like humanity or kindness to a slave, was looked 
upon by her as a great offence, 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



n 



Her instruments of torture were ordinarily the 
raw hide, or a bunch of hickory-sprouts seasoned 
in the fire and tied together. But if these were not 
at hand, nothing came amiss. She couid relish a 
beating with a chair, the broom, tongs, shovel, shears, 
knife-handle, the heavy heel of her slipper, or a bunch 
of keys; her zeal was so active in these barbarous 
inflictions, that her invention was wonderfully quick, 
and some way of inflicting the requisite torture was 
soon found out. 

One instrument of torture is worthy of particular 
description This was an oak club, a foot and a 
half in length and an inch and a half square. 
With this delicate weapon she would beat us upon 
the hands and upon the feet until they were blistered. 
This instrument was carefully preserved for a period 
of four yeaTs. Every day, for that time, I was com- 
pelled to see that hated tool of cruelty lying in the 
chair by my side. The least degree of delinquency 
either in not doing all the appointed work, or in look 
or behavior, was visited with a beating from this oak 
club. That club will always be a prominent object 
in the picture of horrors of my life of more than 
twenty years of bitter bondage. 

When about nine years old, I was sent in the 
evening to catch and kill a turkey. They were 
securely sleeping in a tree — their accustomed rest- 
ing-place for the night. I approached as cautiously 
as possible, and selected the victim I was directed to 
catch; but, just as I grasped him in my hand, my foot 
slipped, and he made his escape from the tree, and 
fled beyond my reach. I returned with a heavv heart 
2 * 



IS 



NARRATIVE OF 



to my mistress with the story of my misfortune. 
She was enraged beyond measure. She determined, 
at once, that I should have a whipping of the worst 
kind, and she was bent upon adding all the aggrava- 
tions possible. Master had gone to bed drunk, 
and was now as fast asleep as drunkards ever are. 
At any rate, he was filling the house with the noise of 
his snoring and with the perfume of his breath. I 
was ordered to go and call him — wake him up — 
and ask him to be kind enough to give me fifty good 
smart lashes. To be whipped is bad enough — to 
ask for it is worse — to ask a drunken man to whip 
you is too bad. I would sooner have gone to a nest 
of rattlesnakes, than to the bed of this drunkard. 
But go I must. Softly I crept along, and gently 
shaking his arm, said, with a trembling voice, " Mas- 
ter, master, mistress wants you to wake up." This 
did not go to the extent of her command, and in a 
great fury she called out, " What, you wont ask him 
to whip you, will you I " I then added, " Mistress 
wants you to give me fifty lashes." A bear at the 
smell of a lamb was never roused quicker. " Yes, 
yes, that I will ; I'll give you such a whipping as you 
will never want again." And, sure enough, so he did. 
He sprang from the bed, seized me by the hair, lashed 
me with a handful of switches, threw me my whole 
length upon the floor; beat, kicked, and cuffed me 
worse than he would a dog, and then threw me, with 
all his strength, out of the door, more dead than alive. 
There I lay for a long time, scarcely able and not dar- 
ing to move, till I could hear no sound of the furies 
within, and then crept to my couch, longing for death 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



19 



to put an end to my misery. I had no friend in the 
world to whom I could utter one word of complaint, 
or to whom I could look for protection. 

Mr. Banton owned a blacksmith's shop, in which 
he spent some of his time, though he was not a very 
efficient hand at the forge. One day, mistress told 
me to go over to the shop and let master give me a 
flogging. I knew the mode of punishing there too 
well. I would rather die than go. The poor fellow 
who worked in the shop, a very skilful workman, one 
day came to the determination that he would work 
no more, unless he could be paid for his labor. The 
enraged master put a handful of nail-rods into the 
fire, and when they were red-hot, took them out, and 
cooled one after another of them in the blood and 
flesh of the poor slave's back. I knew this was the 
shop mode of punishment. I would not go ; and Mr. 
Banton came home, and his amiable lady told him 
the story of my refusal. He broke forth in a great 
rage, and gave me a most unmerciful beating ; add- 
ing that, if I had come, he would have burned the 
hot nail-rods into my back. 

Mrs. Banton, as is common among slaveholding 
women, seemed to hate and abuse me all the more, 
because I had some of the blood of her father in my 
veins. There are no slaves that are so badly abused, 
as those that are related to some of the women, or the 
children of their own husband ; it seems as though 
they never could hate these quite bad enough. My 
sisters were as white and good-looking as any of the 
young ladies in Kentucky. It happened once of a time, 
that a young man called at the house of Mr. Camp- 



NARRATIVE OF 



bell, to see a sister of Mrs. Banton. Seeing one of 
my sisters in the house, and pretty well dressed, with 
a strong family look, he thought it was Miss Camp- 
bell ; and, with that supposition, addressed some con- 
versation to her which he had intended for the private 
ear of Miss C. The mistake was noised abroad, and 
occasioned some amusement to young people. Mrs. 
Banton heard of it, and it made her caldron of wrath 
sizzling hot; every thing that diverted and amused 
other people seemed to enrage her. There are hot- 
springs in Kentucky ; she was just like one of them, 
only brimful of boiling poison. 

She must wreak her vengeance, for this innocent 
mistake of the young man, upon me. " She would 
fix me, so that nobody should ever think I was white." 
Accordingly, in a burning hot day, she made me take 
off every rag of clothes, go out into the garden , and 
pick herbs for hours, in order to burn me black. 
When I went out, she threw cold water on me, so 
that the sun might take effect upon me; when I came 
in, she gave me a severe beating on my blistered back. 

After I had lived with Mrs. B. three or four years, 
I was put to spinning hemp, flax, and tow, on an old- 
fashioned foot-wheel. There were four or five slaves 
at this business, a good part of the time. We were 
kept at our work from daylight to dark in summer, 
from long before day to nine or ten o'clock in the 
evening in winter. Mrs. Banton, for the most part, 
was near, or kept continually passing in and out, to 
see that each of us performed as much work as she 
thought we ought to do. Being young, and sick 
at heart all the time, it was very hard work to go 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



21 



through the day and evening and not suffer exceed- 
ingly for want of more sleep. Very often, too, I 
was compelled to work beyond the ordinary hour, 
to finish the appointed task of the day. Some- 
times I found it impossible not to drop asleep at 
the wheel. 

On these occasions, Mrs. B. had her peculiar con- 
trivances for keeping us awake. She would some- 
times sit, by the hour, with a dipper of vinegar and 
salt, and throw it in my eyes to keep them open. 
My hair was pulled till there was no longer any pain 
from that source. And I can now suffer myself to be 
lifted by the hair of the head, without experiencing 
the least pain. 

She very often kept me from getting water to sat- 
isfy my thirst, and in one instance kept me for two 
entire days without a particle of food. This she did, 
in order that I might make up for lost time. But, 
of course, I lost rather than gained upon my task. 
Every meal taken from me made me less able to 
work. It finally ended in a terrible beating. 

But all my severe labor, and bitter and cruel punish- 
ments, for these ten years of captivity with this worse 
than Arab family, all these were as nothing to the 
sufferings I experienced by being separated from my 
mother, brothers, and sisters; the same things, with 
them near to sympathize with me, to hear, my story 
of sorrow, would have been comparatively tolerable. 

They were distant only about thirty miles ; and 
yet, in ten long, lonely years of childhood, I was only 
permitted to see them three times. 

My mother occasionally found an opportunity to 



22 



NARRATIVE OF 



send me some token of remembrance and affection, 
a sugar-plum or an apple ; but I scarcely ever ate 
them ; they were laid up, and handled and wept over 
till they wasted away in my hand. 

My thoughts continually by day, and my dreams 
by night, were of mother and home ; and the horror 
experienced in the morning, when I awoke and be- 
hold it was a dream, is beyond the power of language 
to describe. 

But I am about to leave this den of robbers, where 
I had been so long imprisoned. I cannot, however, 
call the reader from his new and pleasant acquaint- 
ance with this amiable pair, without giving a few 
more incidents of their history. When this is done, 
and I have taken great pains, as I shall do, to put a 
copy of this portrait in the hands of this Mrs. B., I 
shall bid her farewell. If she sees something awfully 
hideous in her picture, as here presented, she will be 
constrained to acknowledge it is true to nature. I 
have given it from no malice, no feeling of resent- 
ment towards her, but that the world may know what 
is done by slavery, and that slaveholders may know 
that their crimes will come to light. I hope and pray 
that Mrs. B. will repent of her many and aggravated 
sins before it is too late. 

The scenes between her and her husband, while I 
was with them, strongly illustrate the remark of Jef- 
ferson, that slavery fosters the worst passions of the 
master. Scarcely a day passed, in which bitter words 
were not bandied from one to the other. I have seen 
Mrs. B., with a large knife drawn in her right hand, 
the other upon the collar of her husband, swearing 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



513 



and threatening to cut him square in two. They 
both drank freely, and swore like highwaymen. He 
was a gambler and a counterfeiter. I have seen and 
handled his moulds and his false coin. They finally 
quarrelled openly, and separated; and the last I knew 
of them, he was living a sort of poor vagabond life in 
his native state, and she was engaged in a protracted 
lawsuit with some of her former friends, about her 
father's property. 

Of course, such habits did not produce great thrift 
in their worldly condition, and myself and other 
slaves were mortgaged, from time to time, to make 
up the deficiency between their income and expenses. 
I was transferred, at the age of sixteen or seventeen, 
to a Mr. K., whose name I forbear to mention, lest, 
if he or any other man should ever claim property 
where they never had any, this, my own testimony, 
might be brought in to aid their wicked purposes. 

In the exchange of masters, my condition was, in 
many respects, greatly improved. I was free, at any 
rate, from that kind of suffering experienced at the 
hand of Mrs. B., as though she delighted in cruelty 
for its own sake. My situation, however, with Mr. 
K. was far from enviable. Taken from the work in 
and around the house, and put at once, at that early 
age, to the constant work of a full-grown man, I 
found it not an easy task always to escape the lash of 
the overseer. In the four or five years that I was 
with this man, the overseers were often changed. 
Sometimes we had a man that seemed to have some 
consideration, some mercy ; but generally their eye 
seemed to be fixed upon one object, and that was, to 



NARRATIVE OF 



get the greatest possible amount of work out of every 
slave upon the plantation. When stooping to clear 
the tobacco-plants from the worms which infest them, 

— a work which draws most cruelly upon the back, 

— some of these men would not allow us a moment to 
rest at the end of the row ; but, at the crack of the 
whip, we were compelled to jump to our places, from 
row to row, for hours, while the poor back was cry- 
ing out with torture. Any complaint or remonstrance 
under such circumstances is sure to be answered in 
no other way than by the lash. As a sheep before 
her shearers is dumb, so a slave is not permitted to 
open his mouth. 

There were about one hundred and fifteen slaves 
upon this plantation. Generally, we had enough, in 
quantity, of food. We had, however, but two meals 
a day, of corn-meal bread and soup, or meat of the 
poorest kind. Very often, so little care had been 
taken to cure and preserve the b^con, that, when it 
came to us, though it had been fairly killed once, it 
was more alive than dead. Occasionally, we had 
some refreshment over and above the two meals, but 
this was extra, beyond the rules of the plantation. 
And, to balance this gratuity, we were also frequently 
deprived of our food, as a punishment. We suffered 
greatly, too, for want of water. The slave-drivers 
have the notion that slaves are more healthy, if 
allowed to drink but little, than they are if freely al- 
lowed nature's beverage. The slaves quite as confi- 
dently cherish the opinion that, if the master would 
drink less peach brandy and whisky, and give the 
slave more water, it would be better all round. As 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



25 



it is, the more the master and overseer drink, the less 
they seem to think the slave needs. 

In the winter, we took our meals before day in the 
morning, and after work at night ; in the summer, 
at about nine o'clock in the morning, and at two in 
the afternoon. When we were cheated out of our 
two meals a day, either by the cruelty or caprice of 
the overseer, we always felt it a kind of special duty 
and privilege to make up, in some way, the de- 
ficiency. To accomplish this, we had many devices ; 
and we sometimes resorted to our peculiar methods, 
when incited only by a desire to taste greater variety 
than our ordinary bill of fare afforded. 

This sometimes led to very disastrous results. 
The poor slave who was caught with a chicken or a 
pig, killed from the plantation, had his back scored 
most unmercifully. Nevertheless, the pigs would die 
without being sick or squealing once ; and the hens, 
chickens, and turkeys sometimes disappeared, and 
never stuck up a feather to tell where they were 
buried. The old goose would sometimes exchange 
her whole nest of eggs for round pebbles ; and, pa- 
tient as that animal is, this quality was exhausted, and 
she was obliged to leave her nest with no train of 
offspring behind her. 

One old slave woman upon this plantation was al 
together too keen and shrewd for the best of them. 
She would go out to the ccrn-crib with her basket, 
watch her opportunity, with one effective blow pop 
over a little pig, slip him into her basket, and put 
the cobs on top, trudge off to her cabin, and look 
just as innocent as though she had a right to eat of 
3 



26 



NARRATIVE OP 



the work of her own hands. It was a kind of first 
principle, too, in her code of morals, that they that 
worked had a right to eat. The moral of all ques- 
tions in relation to taking food was easily settled by 
aunt Veggy. The only question with her was, how 
and when to do it. 

It could not be done openly, that was plain. It 
must be done secretly ; if not in the daytime, by all 
means in the night. With a dead pig in the cabin, 
and the water all hot for scalding, she was at one 
time warned by her son that the Philistines were 
upon her. Her resources were fully equal to the 
sudden emergency. Quick as thought, the pig was 
thrown into the boiling kettle, a door was put over 
it, her daughter seated upon it, and, with a good, 
thick quilt around her, the overseer found little Clara 
taking a steam-bath for a terrible cold. The daugh- 
ter, acting well her part, groaned sadly ; the mother 
was very busy in tucking in the quilt, and the over- 
seer was blinded, and went away without seeing a 
bristle of the pig. 

Aunt P. cooked for herself, for another slave 
named George, and for me. George was very suc- 
cessful in bringing home his share of the plunder. 
He could capture a pig or a turkey without exciting 
the least suspicion. The old lady often rallied me 
for want of courage for such enterprises. At length, 
I summoned resolution, one rainy night, and deter- 
mined there should be one from the herd of swine 
brought home by my hands. I went to the crib of 
corn, got my ear to shell, and my cart-stake to de- 
spatch a little roaster. I raised my arm to strike, 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



27 



summoned courage again and again, but to no pur- 
pose. The scattered kernels were all picked up, and 
no blow struck. Again I visited the crib, selected 
my victim, and struck ! The blow glanced upon the 
side of the head, and, instead of falling, he ran off, 
squealing louder than ever I heard a pig squeal be- 
fore. I ran as fast, in an opposite direction, made a 
large circuit, and reached the cabin, emptied the hot 
water, and made for my couch as soon as possible. I 
escaped detection, and only suffered from the ridicule 
of old Peggy and young George. 

Poor Jess, upon the same plantation, did not so 
easily escape. More successful in his effort, he killed 
his pig ; but he was found out. He was hung up by 
the hands, with a rail between his feet, and full three 
hundred lashes scored in upon his naked back. For 
a long time his life hung in doubt; and his poor wife, 
for becoming a partaker after the fact, was most se- 
verely beaten. 

Another slave, employed as a driver upon the plan- 
tation, was compelled to whip his own wife, for a 
similar offence, so severely that she never recovered 
from the cruelty. She was literally whipped to death 
by her own husband. 

A slave, called Hall, the hostler on the plantation, 
made a successful sally, one night, upon the animals 
forbidden to the Jews. The next day, he went into 
the barn-loft, and fell asleep. While sleeping over 
his abundant supper, and dreaming, perhaps, of his 
feast, he heard the shrill voice of his master, crying 
out, " The hogs are at the horse-trough ; where is 
Hall ? " The " hogs" and " Hall," coupled together, 



28 



NARRATIVE OF 



were enough for the poor fellow. He sprung from 
the hay, and made the best of his way off the planta- 
tion. He was gone six months ; and, at the end of 
this period, he procured the intercession of the son- 
in-law of his master, and returned, escaping the or- 
dinary punishment. But the transgression was laid 
up. Slaveholders seldom forgive ; they only postpone 
the time of revenge. When about to be severely 
flogged, for some pretended offence, he took two of 
his grandsons, and escaped as far towards Canada as 
Indiana. He was followed, captured, brought back, 
and whipped most horribly.. All the old score had 
been treasured up against him, and his poor back 
atoned for the whole at once. 

On this plantation was a slave, named Sam, whose 
wife lived a few miles distant ; and Sam was very 
seldom permitted to go and see his family. He 
worked in the blacksmith's shop. For a small of- 
fence, he was hung up by the hands, a rail between 
his feet, and whipped in turn by the master, overseer, 
and one of the waiters, till his back was torn all to 
pieces ; and, in less than two months, Sam was in 
his grave. His last words were, " Mother, tell mas- 
ter he has killed me at last, for nothing ; but tell him 
if God will forgive him I -will." 

A very poor white woman lived within about a 
mile of the plantation house. A female slave, named 
Flora, knowing she was in a very suffering condition, 
shelled out a peck of corn, and carried it to her in 
the night. Next day, the old man found it out, and 
this deed of charity was atoned for by one hundred 
and fifty lashes upon the bare back of poor Flora, 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



29 



The master with whom I now lived was a very 
passionate man. At one time he thought the work 
on the plantation did not go on as it ought. One 
morning, when he and the overseer waked up from 
a drunken frolic, they swore the hands should not eat 
a morsel of any thing, till a field of wheat of some 
sixty acres was all cradled. There were from thirty 
to forty hands to do the work. We were driven on 
to the extent of our strength, and, although a brook 
ran through the field, not one of us was permitted to 
stop and taste a drop of water. Some of the men 
were so exhausted that they reeled for very weak- 
ness ; two of the women fainted, and one of them was 
severely whipped, to revive her. They were at last 
carried helpless from the field and thrown down under 
the shade of a tree. At about five o'clock in the 
afternoon the wheat was all cut, and we were per- 
mitted to eat. Our suffering for want of water was 
excruciating. I trembled all over from the inward 
gnawing of hunger and from burning thirst. 

In view of the sufferings of this day, we felt fully 
justified in making a foraging expedition upon the 
milk-room that night. And when master, and over- 
seer, and all hands were locked up in sleep, ten or 
twelve of us went down to the spring house; a house 
built over a spring, to keep the milk and other things 
cool. We pressed altogether against the door, and 
open it came. We found half of a good baked pig, 
plenty of cream, milk, and other delicacies ; and, as 
we felt in some measure delegated to represent all that 
had been cheated of their meals the day before,, we 
ate plentifully. But after a successful plundering 
3 # 



30 



NARRATIVE OF 



expedition within the gates of the enemy 5 s camp, it is 
not easy always to cover the retreat. We had a re- 
serve in the pasture for this purpose. We went up 
to the herd of swine, and, with a milk-pail in hand, it 
was easy to persuade them there was more where that 
came from, and the whole tribe followed readily into 
the spring house, and we left them there to wash the 
dishes and wipe up the floor, while we retired to rest. 
This was not malice in us; we did not love the waste 
which the hogs made ; but we must have something 
to eat, to pay for the cruel and reluctant fast ; and 
when we had obtained this, we must of course cover 
up our track. They watch us narrowly ; and to take 
an egg, a pound of meat, or any thing else, howeveT 
hungry we may be, is considered a great crime ; we 
are compelled, therefore, to waste a good deal some- 
times, to get a little. 

I lived with this Mr. K. about four or five years; I 
then fell into the hands of his son. He was a drink- 
ing, ignorant man, but not so cruel as his father. 
Of him I hired my time at $12 a month; boarded and 
clothed myself. To meet my payments, I split rails, 
burned coal, peddled grass seed, and took hold of 
whatever I could find to do. This last master, or 
owner, as he would call himself, died about one year 
before I left Kentucky. By the administrators I was 
hired out for a time, and at last put up upon the auc- 
tion block, for sale. No hid could be obtained for 
me. There were two reasons in the way. One was, 
there were two or three old mortgages which were 
not settled, and the second reason given by the bid- 
ders was, I had had too many privileges ; had been 



LEV/IS CLARKE. 31 

permitted to trade for myself and go over the state ; 
in short, to use their phrase, I was a " spoilt nigger." 
And sure enough I was, for all their purposes. I 
had long thought and dreamed of Liberty ; I was 
now determined to make an effort, to gain it. No 
tongue can tell the doubt, the perplexities, the anxiety 
which a slave feels, when making up his mind upon 
this subject If he makes an effort, and is not suc- 
cessful, he must be laughed at by his fellows; he 
will be beaten unmercifully by the master, and then 
watched and used the harder for it all his life. 

And then, if he gets away, who, what will he find ? 
He is ignorant of the world. All the white part of 
mankind, that he has ever seen, are enemies to him 
and all his kindred. How can he venture where none 
but white faces shall greet him ? The master tells 
him, that abolitionists decoy slaves off into the free 
states, to catch them and sell them to Louisiana or 
Mississippi; and if he goes to Canada, the British 
will put him in a mine under ground, with both eyes 
put out, for life. How does he know what, or whom, 
to believe! A horror of great darkness comes upoA 
him, as he thinks over what may befall him. Long, 
very long time did I think of escaping before I made 
the effort 

At length, the report was started that I was to be 
sold for Louisiana, Then I thought it was time to 
act. My mind was made up. This was about two 
weeks before I started. The first plan was formed 
between a slave named Isaac and myself. Isaac pro- 
posed to take one of the horses of his mistress, and I 
was to take my pony, and we were to ride off together ; 



NARRATIVE OF 



I as master, and he as slave. We started together, 
and went on five miles. My want of confidence 
in the plan induced me to turn back. Poor Isaac 
plead like a good fellow to go forward. I am sat- 
isfied from experience and observation that both of 
us must have been captured and carried back. I 
did not know enough at that time to travel and 
manage a waiter. Ever) 7 thing would have been done 
in such an awkward manner that a keen eye would 
have seen through our plot at once. I did not 
know the roads, and could not have read the guide- 
boards; and ignorant as many people are in Ken- 
tucky, they would have thought it strange to see a 
man with a waiter, who could not read a guide-board, 
I was sorry to leave Isaac, but I am satisfied I could 
have done him no good in the way proposed. 

After this failure, I staid about two weeks; and 
after having arranged every thing to the best of my 
knowledge, I saddled my pony, went into the cellar 
where I kept my grass-seed apparatus, put my clothes 
into a pair of saddle-bags, and them into my seed-bag, 
a^id, thus equipped, set sail for the north star. O 
what a day was that to me ! This was on Satur- 
day, in August, 1841. I wore my common clothes, 
and was very careful to avoid special suspicion, as I 
already imagined the administrator was very watch- 
ful of me. The place from which I started was 
about fifty miles from Lexington. The reason why 
I do not give the name of the place, and a more 
accurate location, must be obvious to any one who 
remembers that, in the eye of the law, I am yet 
accounted a slave, and no spot in the United States 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



33 



affords an asylum for the wanderer. True, I feel 
protected in the hearts of the many warm friends 
of the slave by whom I am surrounded; but this pro- 
tection does not come from the laws of any one of 
the United States. 

But to return. After riding about fifteen miles, a 
Baptist minister overtook me on the road, saying, 
" How do you do, boy! are you free? I always 
thought you were free, till I saw them try to sell you 
the other day." I then wished him a thousand miles 
off, preaching, if he would, to the whole plantation, 
" Servants, obey your masters; " but I wanted neither 
sermons, questions, nor advice from him. At length 
I mustered resolution to make some kind of a reply. 
" What made you think I was free? " He replied, that 
he had noticed I had great privileges, that I did much 
as I liked, and that I was almost white. <4 O yes," I 
said, u but there are a great many slaves as white as I 
am." " Yes," he said, and then went on to name 
several ; among others, one who had lately, as he said, 
run away. This was touching altogether too near 
upon what I was thinking of. Now, said I, he must 
know, or at least reckons, what I am at — running 
away. 

However, I blushed as little as possible, and made 
strange of the fellow who had lately run away, as 
though I knew nothing of it. The old fellow looked 
at me, as it seemed to me, as though he would read 
my thoughts. I wondered what in the world slaves 
could run away for, especially if they had such a 
chance as I had had for the last few years. He said, 
" I suppose you would not run away on any account, 




34 



NARRATIVE OF 



you are so well treated." " 0," said I, " I do very well , 
very well, sir. If you should ever hear that I had 
run away, be certain it must be because there is some 
great change in my treatment." 

He then began to talk with me about the seed in 
my bag, and said that he should want to buy some. 
Then, I thought, he means to get at the truth by 
looking in my seed hag, where, sure enough, he would 
not find grass seed, but the seeds of Liberty. How- 
ever, he dodged off soon, and left me alone. And 
although I have heard say, poor company is better 
than none, I felt much better without him than with 
him. 

When I had gone on about twenty-five miles, I 
went down into a deep valley by the side of the road, 
and changed my clothes. I reached Lexington about 
seven o'clock that evening, and put up with brother 
Cyrus. As I had often been to Lexington before, 
and stopped with him, it excited no attention from 
the slaveholdmg gentry. Moreover, I had a pass 
from the administrator, of whom I had hired my time. 
I remained over the Sabbath with Cyrus, and we 
talked over a great many plans for future operations, 
if my efforts to escape should be successful. Indeed, 
we talked over all sorts of ways for me to proceed. 
But both of us were very ignorant of the roads, and 
of the best way to escape suspicion. And I some- 
times wonder that a slave, so ignorant, so timid, as 
he is, ever makes the attempt to get his freedom. 
" Without are foes, within are fears." 

Monday morning, bright and early, I set my face 
in good earnest toward the Ohio River, determined 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



35 



to see and tread the north bank of it, or die in the 
attempt. I said to myself, One of two things, — free- 
dom or death ! The first night I reached Mayslick, 
fifty odd miles from Lexington. Just before reach- 
ing this village, I stopped to think over my situation, 
and determine how I would pass that night. On that 
night hung all my hopes. I was within twenty miles 
of Ohio. My horse was unable to reach the river 
that night. And besides, to travel and attempt to 
cross the river in the night, would excite suspicion. 
I must spend the night there. But how ? At one 
time, I thought, I will take my pony out into the 
field and give him some corn, and sleep myself on the 
grass. But then the dogs will be out in the evening, 
and, if caught under such circumstances, they will 
take me for a thief if not for a runaway. That wiP 
not do. So, after weighing the matter all over, I 
made a plunge right into the heart of the village, and 
put up at the tavern. 

After seeing my pony disposed of, I looked into 
the bar-room, and saw some persons that I thought 
were from my part of the country, and would know 
me. I shrunk back with horror. What to do I did 
not know. I looked across the street, and saw the 
shop of a silversmith. A thought of a pair of spec- 
tacles, to hide my face, struck me. I went across 
the way, and began to barter for a pair of double- 
eyed green spectacles. When I got them on, they 
blind-folded me, if they did not others. Every thing 
seemed right up in my eyes. Some people buy spec- 
tacles to see out of; I bought mine to keep from be- 
ing seen. I hobbled back to the tavern, and called 



3(5 



NARRATIVE OF 



for supper. This I did to avoid notice, for I felt 
like any thing but eating. At tea, I had not learned 
to measure distances with my new eyes, and the first 
pass I made with my knife and fork at my plate 
went right into my lap. This confused me still 
more, and, after drinking one cup of tea, I left the 
table, and got off to bed as soon as possible. But 
not a wink of sleep that night. All was confusion, 
dreams, anxiety, and trembling. 

As soon as day dawned, I called for my horse, paid 
my reckoning, and was on my way, rejoicing that 
that night was gone, any how. I made all diligence 
on my way, and was across the Ohio, and in Aber- 
deen by noon, that day ! 

What my feelings were, when I reached the free 
shore, can be better imagined than described. 1 
trembled all over with deep emotion, and I could feel 
my hair rise up on my head. I was on what was 
called a free soil, among a people who had no slaves. 
I saw white men at work, and no slave smarting be- 
neath the lash. Every thing was indeed new and 
wonderful. Not knowing where to find a friend, and 
being ignorant of the country — unwilling to inquire, 
lest I should betray my ignorance, it was a whole 
week before I reached Cincinnati. At one place, 
where I put up, I had a great many more questions 
put to me than I wished to answer. At another 
place, I was very much annoyed by the officiousness 
of the landlord, who made it a point to supply every 
guest with newspapers. I took the copy handed me, 
and turned it over, in a somewhat awkward manner, 
I suppose. He came to me to point out a veto, or 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



37 



some other very important news. I thought it best 
to decline his assistance, and gave up the paper, 
saying my eyes were not in a fit condition to read 
much. 

At another place, the neighbors, on learning that 
a Kentuckian was at the tavern, came, in great ear- 
nestness, to find out what my business was. Ken- 
tuckians sometimes came there to kidnap their cit- 
izens. They were in the habit of watching them 
close. I at length satisfied them, by assuring them 
that I was not, nor my father before me, any slave- 
holder at all ; but, lest their suspicions should be 
excited in another direction, I added, my grand- 
father was a slaveholder. 

At Cincinnati, I found some old acquaintances, 
and spent several days. In passing through some of 
the streets, I several times saw a great slave-dealer 
from Kentucky, who knew me, and, when I ap- 
proached him, I was very careful to give him a wide 
berth. The only advice that I here received was 
from a man who had once been a slave. He urged 
me to sell my pony, go up the river, to Portsmouth, 
then take the canal for Cleveland, and cross over to 
Canada. I acted upon this suggestion, sold my 
horse for a small sum, as he was pretty well used 
up, took passage for Portsmouth, and soon found 
myself on the canal-boat, headed for Cleveland. On 
the boat, I became acquainted with a Mr. Conoly, 
from New York. He was very sick with fever and 
ague, and, as he was a stranger, and alone, I took 
the best possible care of him, for a time. One day, 
in conversation with him, he spoke of the slaves, in 
4 



38 



NARRATIVE OF 



the most harsh and bitter language, and was espe- 
cially severe on those who attempted to run away. 
Thinks I, you are not the man for me to have much 
to do with. I found the spirit of slaveholding was 
not all south of the Ohio River. 

No sooner had I reached Cleveland, than a .trou- 
ble came upon me from a very unexpected quarter, 
A rough, swearing, reckless creature, in the shape 
of a man, came up to me, and declared I had passed 
a bad five dollar bill upon his wife, in the boat, and 
he demanded the silver for it. I had never seen 
him, nor his wife, before. He pursued me into the 
tavern, swearing and threatening all the way. The 
travellers, that had just arrived at the tavern, were 
asked to give their names to the clerk, that he might 
enter them upon the book. He called on me for my 
name, just as this ruffian was in the midst of his 
assault upon me. On leaving Kentucky, I thought 
it best, for my own security, to take a new name, 
and I had been entered on the boat as Archibald 
Campbell. I knew, with such a charge as this man 
was making against me, it would not do to change 
my name from the boat to the hotel. At the mo- 
ment, I could not recollect what I had called myself, 
and, for a few minutes, I was in a complete puzzle. 
The clerk kept calling, and I made believe deaf, till, 
at length, the name popped back again, and I was 
duly enrolled a guest at the tavern, in Cleveland. I 
had heard, before, of persons being frightened out of 
their Christian names, but I was fairly scared out of 
both mine for a while. The landlord soon protected 
me from the violence of the bad-meaning man, and 
drove him away from the house. 



Li:WX5 CLAIIKJL-. 39 

I was detained at Cleveland several days, not 
knowing how to get across the lake, into Canada. 
I went out to the shore of the lake again and again, 
to try and see the other side, but I could see no hill, 
mountain, nor city of the asylum I sought I was 
afraid to inquire where it was, lest it would betray 
such a degree of ignorance as to excite suspicion at 
once. One day, I heard a man ask another, em- 
ployed on board a vessel, " and where does this ves- 
sel trade ? " Well, I thought, if that is a proper ques- 
tion for you, it is for me. So I passed along, and 
asked of every vessel, " Where does this vessel 
trade?" At last, the answer came, "over here in 
Kettle Creek, near Port Stanley." And where is 
that? said I. " O, right over here, in Canada." 
That was the sound for me ; " over here in Canada," 
The captain asked me if I wanted a passage to Can- 
ada. I thought it would not do to be too earnest 
about it, lest it would betray me. I told him I some 
thought of going, if I could get a passage cheap. 
We soon came to terms on this point, and that even- 
ing we set sail After proceeding only nine miles, 
the wind changed, and the captain returned to port 
again. This, I thought, was a very bad omen. How- 
ever, I stuck by, and the next evening, at nine 
o'clock, we set sail once more, and at daylight we 
were in Canada. 

When I stepped ashore here, I said ; sure enough, 
I am free. Good heaven ! what a sensation, when 
it first visits the bosom of a full-grown man ; one 
horn to bondage — one who had been taught, from 
early infancy, that this was his inevitable lot for life 



40 



NARRATIVE OF 



Not till then did I dare to cherish, for a moment, the 
feeling that one of the limbs of my body was my own. 
The slaves often say, when cut in the hand or foot, 
" Plague on the old foot " or " the old hand ; it is 
master's — let him take care of it. Nigger don't 
care, if he never get well." My hands, my feet, were 
now my own. But what to do with them, was the 
next question. A strange sky was over me, a new 
earth under me, strange voices all around ; even the 
animals were such as I had never seen. A flock 
of prairie-hens and some black geese were altogether 
new to me. I was entirely alone ; no human being, 
that I had ever seen before, where I could speak to 
him or he to me. 

And could I make that country ever seem like 
home? Some people are very much afraid all the 
slaves will run up north, if they are ever free. But 
I can assure them that they will run back again, if 
they do. If I could have been assured of my free- 
dom in Kentucky, then, I would have given any thing 
in the world for the prospect of spending my life 
among my old acquaintances, where I first saw the 
sky, and the sun rise and go down. It was a long 
time before I could make the sun work right at all. 
It would rise in the wrong place, and go down wrong ; 
and, finally, it behaved so bad, I thought it could not 
be the same sun. 

There was a little something added to this feeling 
of strangeness. I could not forget all the horrid 
stories slaveholders tell about Canada. They assure 
the slave that, when they get hold of slaves in Canada, 
they make various uses of them. Sometimes they 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



41 



skin the head, and wear the wool on their coat col- 
lars — put them into the lead-mines, with both eyes 
out — the young slaves they eat; and as for the red 
coats, they are sure death to the slave. However 
ridiculous to a well-informed person such stories may 
appear, they work powerfully upon the excited imag- 
ination of an ignorant slave. With these stories all 
fresh in mind, when I arrived at St. Thomas, I kept 
a bright look-out for the red coats. As I was turning 
the corner of one of the streets, sure enough, there 
stood before me a red coat, in full uniform, with his 
tall bear-skin cap, a foot and a half high, his gun 
shouldered, and he standing as erect as a guide-post. 
Sure enough, that is the fellow that they tell about 
catching the slave. I turned on my heel, and sought 
another street. On turning another corner, the same 
soldier, as I thought, faced me, with his black cap 
and stern look. Sure enough, my time has come 
now. I was as near scared to death, then, as a man 
can be and breathe. I could not have felt any worse 
if he had shot me right through the heart. I made 
olf again, as soon as I dared to move. I inquired for 
a tavern. When I came up to it, there was a great 
brazen lion sleeping over the door, and, although 1 
knew it was not alive, I had been so well frightened 
that I was almost afraid to go in. Hunger drove me 
to it at last, and I asked for something to eat. 

On my way to St. Thomas I was also badly fright- 
ened. A man asked me who I was. I was afraid to 
tell him a runaway slave, lest he should have me to 
the mines. I was afraid to say, " I am an Ameri- 
can," lest he should shoot me, for I knew there had 
4* 



42 



NARRATIVE OF 



been trouble between the British and Americans. I 
inquired, at length, for the place where the greatest 
number of colored soldiers were. I was told there 
were a great many at New London ; so for New Lon- 
don I started. I got a ride, with some country people, 
to the latter place. They asked me who I was, and 
I told them from Kentucky ; and they, in a familiar 
way, called me " Old Kentuck." I saw some sol- 
diers, on the way, and asked the men what they had 
soldiers for. They said they were kept " to get 
drunk and be whipped ; " that was the chief use they 
made of them. At last, I reached New London, and 
here I found soldiers in great numbers. I attended 
at their parade, and saw the guard driving the people 
back ; but it required no guard to keep me off. I 
thought, " If you will let me alone, I will not trouble 
you/ 5 I was as much afraid of a red coat as I would 
have been of a bear. Here I asked again for the 
colored soldiers. The answ T er was, " Out at Chat- 
ham, about seventy miles distant." I started for 
Chatham. The first night, I stopped at a place 
called the Indian Settlement. The door was barred, 
at the house where I was, which I did not like so 
well, as I was yet somewhat afraid of their Canadian 
tricks. Just before I got to Chatham, I met two 
colored soldiers, with a white man, bound, and driv- 
ing him along before them. This was something 
quite new. I thought, then, sure enough, this is the 
land for me. I had seen a great many colored 
people bound, and in the hands of the whites, but 
this was changing things right about. This re- 
moved all my suspicions, and, ever after, I felt quite 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



43 



easy in Canada. I made diligent inquiry for several 
slaves, that I had known in Kentucky, and at length 
found one, named Henry. He told me of several 
others, with whom I had been acquainted, and from 
him, also, I received the first correct information 
about brother Milton. I knew that he had left Ken- 
tucky about a year before I did, and I supposed, un- 
til now, that he was in Canada. Henry told me he 
was at Oberlin, Ohio. 

At Chatham, I hired myself for a while, to recruit 
my purse a little, as it had become pretty well drained 
by this time. I had only about sixty-four dollars, 
when I left Kentucky, and I had been living upon 
it now for about six weeks. Mr. Everett, with whom 
I worked, treated me kindly, and urged me to stay in 
Canada, offering me business on his farm. He de- 
clared " there was no 'free state* in America; all 
were slave states, bound to slavery, and the slave 
could have no asylum in any of them." There is 
certainly a great deal of truth in this remark. I have 
felt, wherever I may be in the United States, the 
kidnappers may be upon me at any moment. If I 
should creep up to the top of the monument on Bun- 
ker's Hill, beneath which my father fought, I should 
not be safe, even there. The slave-mongers have a 
right, by the laws of the United States, to seek me, 
even upon the top of the monument, whose base rests 
upon the bones of those who fought for freedom. 

I soon after made my way to Sandwich, and 
crossed over to Detroit, on my way to Ohio, to see 
Milton. While in Canada, I swapped away my pis- 
tol, as I thought I should not need it, for an old 



44 



NARRATIVE OF 



watch. When I arrived at Detroit, I found my watch 
was gone. I put my baggage, with nearly every cent 
of money I had, on board the boat for Cleveland, and 
went back to Sandwich to search for the old watch. 

* The ferry here was about three-fourths of a mile, and, 
in my zeal for the old watch, I wandered so far that 
I did not get back in season for the boat, and had 
the satisfaction of hearing her last bell just as I was 

* about to leave the Canada shore. When I got back 
to Detroit I was in a fine fix ; my money and my 
clothes gone, and I left to wander about in the streets 
of Detroit. A man may be a man for all clothes or 
money, but he don't feel quite so well, any how. 
W 7 hat to do now I could hardly tell. It was about 
the first of November. I wandered about and picked 
up something very cheap for supper, and paid nine- 
pence for lodging. All the next day no boat 
for Cleveland. Long days and nights to me. At 
length another boat was up for Cleveland. I went 
to the Captain, to tell him my story ; he was very 
cross and savage ; said a man had no business from 
home without money; that so many told stories about 
losing money that he did not know what to believe. 
He finally asked ihe how much money I had. I told 
him sixty-two and a half cents. Well, he said, give 
me that, and pay the balance when you get there. I 
gave him every cent I had. We were a day and a 
night on the passage, and I had nothing to eat except 
some cold potatoes, which I picked from a barrel of 
fragments, and cold victuals. I went to the steward, 
or cook, and asked for something to eat, but he 
told me his orders were strict to give away nothing, 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



45 



and, if he should do it, he would lose his place at 
once. 

When the boat came to Cleveland it was in the 
night, and I thought I would spend the balance of 
the night in the boat. The steward soon came along, 
and asked if I did not know that the boat had landed, 
and the passengers had gone ashore. I told him I 
knew it, but I had paid the captain all the money I 
had, and could get no shelter for the night unless I 
remained in the boat. He was very harsh and un- 
feeling, and drove me ashore, although it was very 
cold, and snow on the ground. I walked around 
a while, till I saw a light in a small house of enter- 
tainment. I called for lodging. In the morning, the 
Frenchman, who kept it, wanted to know if I would 
have breakfast. I told him, no. He said then I 
might pay for my lodging. I told him I would 
do so before I left, and that my outside coat might 
hang there till I paid him. 

I was obliged at once to start on an expedition for 
raising some cash. My resources were not very nu- 
merous. I took a hair brush, that I had paid three 
York shillings for a short time before, and sallied 
out to make a sale. But the wants of every person 
I met seemed to be in the same direction with my 
own ; they wanted money more than hair brushes. 
At last, I found a customer who paid me ninepence 
cash, and a small balance in the shape of something 
to eat for breakfast. I was started square for that 
day, and delivered out of my present distress. But 
hunger will return, and all the quicker when a man 
don't know how to satisfy it when it does come. I 



46 



NARRATIVE OF 



went to a plain boarding-house, and told the man just 
my situation; that I was waiting for the boat to re- 
turn from Buffalo, hoping to get my baggage and 
money. He said he would board me two or three 

m r days and risk- it. I tried to get work, but no one 

seemed inclined to employ me. At last, I gave up in 
despair, about my luggage, and concluded to start as 
soon as possible for Oberlin. I sold my great-coat 

« for two dollars, paid one for my board, and with the 

other I was going to pay my fare to Oberlin. That 
night, after I had made all my arrangements to leave 
in the morning, the boat came. On hearing the bell 
of a steam-boat, in the night, I jumped up and went 
to the wharf, and found my baggage; paid a quarter 
of a dollar for the long journey it had been carried, 
and glad enough to get it again at that. 

The next morning, I took the stage for Oberlin ; 
found several abolitionists from that place in the 
coach. They mentioned a slave named Mil ion 
Clarke, who was living there, that he had a brother 
in Canada, and that he expected him there soon. 
They spoke in a very friendly manner of Milton, and 
of the slaves ; so, after we had had a long conversation, 
and I perceived they were all friendly, I made myself 
known to them. To be thus surrounded at once 
with friends, in a land of strangers, was something 
quite new to me. The impression made by the kind- 
ness of these strangers upon my heart, will never be 
effaced. I thought, there must be some new princi- 
ple at work here, such as I had not seen much of in 
Kentucky. That evening I arrived at Oberlin, and 
found Milton boarding at a Mrs. Cole's. Finding 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



47 



here so many friends, my first impression was that 
all the abolitionists in the country must live right 
there together. When Milton spoke of going to 
Massachusetts, " No," said I, " we better stay here 
where the abolitionists live." And when they as- 
sured me that the friends of the slave were more 
numerous in Massachusetts than in Ohio, I war 
greatly surprised. 

Milton and I had not seen each other for a year ; 
during that time we had passed through the greatest 
change in outward condition, that can befall a man 
in this world. How glad we were to greet each other 
in what we then thought a free State may be easily 
imagined. We little dreamed of the dangers sleep- 
ing around us. Brother Milton had not encountered 
so much danger in getting away as I had. But his 
time for suffering was soon to come. For several 
years before his escape, Milton had hired his time of 
his master, and had been employed as a steward in 
different steamboats upon the river. He had paid as 
high as two hundred dollars a year for his time. 
From his master he had a written pass, permitting 
him to go up and down the Mississippi and Ohio 
rivers when he pleased. He found it easy, therefore, 
to land on the north side of the Ohio river, and con- 
cluded to take his own time for returning. He had 
caused a letter to be written to Mr. L., his pretended 
owner, telling him to give himself no anxiety on his 
account; that he had found by experience he had 
wit enough to take care of himself, and he thought 
the care of his master was not worth the two hundred 
dollars a year which he had been paying for it, for 



48 



NARRATIVE OP 



four years ; that, on the whole, if his master would be 
quiet and contented, he thought he should do very 
well. This letter, the escape of two persons belong- 
ing to the same family, and from the same region, in 
one year, waked up the fears and the spite of the 
slaveholders. However, they let us have a little 
respite, and, through the following winter and spring, 
we were employed in various kinds of work at Ober- 
lin and in the neighborhood. 

All this time I was deliberating upon a plan by 
which to go down and rescue Cyrus, our youngest 
brother, from bondage. In July, 1842, I gathered 
what little money I had saved, which was not a 
large sum, and started for Kentucky again. As 
near as I remember, I had about twenty dollars. I 
did not tell my plan to but one or two at Oberlin, 
because there were many slaves there, and I did not 
know but that it might get to Kentucky in some way 
through them sooner than I should. On my way 
down through Ohio, I advised with several well known 
friends of the slave. Most of them pointed out the 
dangers I should encounter, and urged me not to go. 
One young man told me to go, and the God of heaven 
would prosper me. I knew it was dangerous, but I 
did not then dream of all that I must sutler in body 
and mind before I was through with it. It is not 
a very comfortable feeling, to be creeping round day 
and night, for nearly two weeks together, in a den 
of lions, where, if one of them happens to put his 
paw on you, it is certain death, or something much 
worse. 

At Ripley, I met a man who had lived in Ken- 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



49 



tucky ; he encouraged me to go forward, and directed 
me about the roads. He told me to keep on a back 
route not much travelled, and I should not be likely to 
be molested. I crossed the river at Ripley, and when 
I reached the other side, and was again upon the 
soil on which I had suffered so much, I trembled, 
shuddered, at the thoughts of what might happen to 
me. My fears, my feelings, overcame for the moment 
all my resolution, and I was for a time completely 
overcome with emotion. Tears flowed like a brook 
of water. I had just left kind friends ; I was now 
where every man I met would be my enemy. It was 
a long time before I could summon courage sufficient 
to proceed. I had with me a rude map, made by the 
Kentuckian whom I saw at Ripley. After examining 
this as well as I could, I proceeded. In the afternoon 
of the first day, as I was sitting in a stream to bathe 
and cool my feet, a man rode up on horseback, and 
entered into a long conversation with me. He asked 
me some questions about my travelling, but none but 
what I could easily answer. He pointed out to me 
a house where a white woman lived, who, he said, had 
recently suffered terribly from a fright. Eight slaves, 
that were running away, called for something to eat, 
and the poor woman was sorely scared by them. 
For his part, the man said, he hoped they never 
would find the slaves again. Slavery was the curse 
of Kentucky. He had been brought up to work, 
and he liked to work, but slavery made it disgraceful 
for any white man to work. From this conversation 
I was almost a good mind to trust this man, and tell 
him my story ; but, on second thought, I concluded 
5 



•SO 



NARRATIVE OF 



it might be just as safe not to do it. A hundred or 
two dollars for returning a slave, for a poor man, is a 
heavy temptation. At night, I stopped at the house 
of a widow woman, not a tavern, exactly ; but they 
often entertained people there. The next day, when 
I got as far as Cynthiana, within about twenty miles 
of Lexington, I was sore all over, and lame, from 
having walked so far. I tried to hire a horse and 
carriage, to help me a few miles. At last, I agreed 
with a man to send me forward to a certain place, 
which he said was twelve miles, and for which I paid 
him, in advance, three dollars. It proved to be only 
seven miles. This was now Sabbath day, as I had 
selected that as the most suitable day for making my 
entrance into Lexington. There is much more pass- 
ing in and out on that day, and I thought I should be 
much less observed than on any other day. 

When I approached the city, and met troops of 
idlers, on foot and on horseback, sauntering out of 
the city, I was very careful to keep my umbrella be- 
fore my face, as people passed, and kept my eyes 
right before me. There were many persons in the 
place who had known me, and I did not care to 
be recognized by any of them. Just before enter- 
ing the city, I turned off to the field, and lay down 
under a tree and waited for night. When its cur- 
tains were fairly over me, I started up, took two 
pocket handkerchiefs, tied one over my forehead, the 
other under my chin, and marched forward for the 
city. It was not then so dark as I wished it was. 
I met a young slave, driving cows. He was quite 
disposed to condole with me, and said, in a very 



LEWIS CLARKE. 51 

sympathetic manner, " Massa sick 1 " "Yes, boy," I 
said, " Massa sick ; drive along your cows." The 
next colored man I met, I knew him in a moment, 
but he did not recognize me. I made for the wash- 
house of the man with whom Cyrus lived. I reached 
it without attracting any notice, and found there an old 
slave, as true as steel. I inquired for Cyrus ; he said he 
was at home. He very soon recollected me ; and, while 
the boy was gone to call Cyrus, he uttered a great 
many exclamations of wonder, to think I should return. 

" Goad Heaven, boy! what you back here for? 
What on arth you here for, my son ? O, I scared for 
you ! They kill you, just as sure as I alive, if they 
catch you ! Why, in the name of liberty, didn't you 
stay away, when you gone so slick? Sartin, I never 
did 'spect to see you again ! " I said, " Don't be 
scared." But he kept repeating, " I scared for you ! 
I scared for you ! " When I told him my errand, 
his wonder was somewhat abated ; but still his ex- 
clamations were repeated all the evening, " What 
brought you back here ? " In a few minutes, Cyrus 
made his appearance, filled with little less of wonder 
than the old man had manifested. I had intended, 
when I left him, about a year before, that I would 
return for him, if I was successful in my effort for 
freedom. He was very glad to see me, and entered, 
with great animation, upon the plan for his own es- 
cape. He had a wife, who was a free woman, and 
consequently he had a home. He soon went out, 
and left me in the wash-room with the old man. He 
went home to apprize his wife, and to prepare a room 
for my concealment. His wife is a very active, in- 



52 



NARRATIVE OF 



dustrious woman, and they were enabled to rent a 
very comfortable house, and, at this time, had a spare 
room in the attic, where I could be thoroughly con- 
cealed. 

He soon returned, and said every thing was ready. 
I went home with him, and, before ten o'clock at 
night, I was stowed away in a little room, that was 
to be my prison-house for about a week. It was a 
comfortable room ; still the confinement was close, 
and I was unable to take exercise, lest the people in 
the other part of the house should hear. I got out, 
and walked around a little, in the evening, but suf- 
fered a good deal, for want of more room to live and 
move in. During the day, Cyrus was busy making 
arrangements for his departure. He had several lit- 
tle sums of money, in the hands of the foreman of the 
tan-yard, and in other hands. Now, it would not do 
to go right boldly up and demand his pay of every 
one that owed him ; this would lead to suspicion at 
once. So he contrived various ways to get in his 
little debts. He had seen the foreman, one day, 
counting out some singular coin of some foreign na- 
tion. He pretended to take a great liking to that 
foreign money, and told the man, if he would pay him 
what was due him in that money, he would give him 
two or three dollars. From another person he took 
an order on a store ; and so, in various ways, he got 
in his little debts as well as he could. At night, we 
contrived to plan the ways and means of escaping. 
Cyrus had never been much accustomed to walking, 
and he dreaded, very much, to undertake such a jour- 
ney. He proposed to take a couple of horses, as he 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



53 



thought he had richly earned them, over and above 
all he had received. I objected to this, because, if 
we were caught, either in Kentucky or out of it, they 
would bring against us the charge of stealing, and 
this would be far worse than the charge of running 
away. 

I firmly insisted, therefore, that we must go on 
foot. In the course of a week, Cyrus had gathered 
something like twenty dollars, and we were ready 
for our journey. A family lived in the same house 
with Cyrus, in a room below. How to get out, in 
the early part of the evening, and not be discov- 
ered, was not an easy question. Finally, we agreed 
that Cyrus should go down and get into conver- 
sation with them, while I slipped out with his bun- 
dle of clothes, and repaired to a certain street, where 
he was to meet me. 

As I passed silently out at the door, Cyrus was 
cracking his best jokes, and raising a general laugh, 
which completely covered my retreat. Cyrus soon 
took quiet and unexpected leave of his friends in 
that family, and leave, also, of his wife above, for a 
short time only. At a little past eight of the clock 
we were beyond the bounds of the city. His wife 
did all she could to assist him in his effort to gain his 
inalienable rights. She did not dare, however, to let 
the slaveholders know that she knew any thing of his 
attempt to run away. He had told the slaves that he 
was going to see his sister, about twelve miles off. It 
was Saturday night, when we left Lexington. On 
entering the town, when I went in, I was so intent 
upon covering up my face, that I took but little no- 
5* 



54 



NARRATIVE OF 



tice of the roads. We were very soon exceedingly 
perplexed to know what road to take. The moon 
favored us, for it was a clear, beautiful night. On 
we came, but, at the cross of the roads, what to do 
we did not know. At length, I climbed one of the 
guide-posts, and spelled out the names as well as I 
could. We were on the road to freedom's boundary, 
and, with a strong step, we measured off the path : 
but again the cross roads perplexed us. This time, 
we took hold of the sign-post and lifted it out of the 
ground, and turned it upon one of its horns, and 
spelled out the way again. As we started from this 
goal, I told Cyrus we had not put up the sign-post. 
He pulled forward, and said he guessed we would do 
that when we came back. Whether the sign-board is 
up or down, we have never been there to see. 

Soon after leaving the city, we met a great many 
of the patrols; but they did not arrest us, and we had 
no disposition to trouble them. 

While we were pressing on, by moonlight, and 
sometimes in great doubt about the road, Cyrus was 
a good deal discouraged. He thought, if we got 
upon the wrong road, it would be almost certain 
death for us, or something worse. In the morning, 
we found that, on account of our embarrassment in 
regard to the roads, we had only made a progress of 
some twenty or twenty-five miles. But we were 
greatly cheered to find they were so many miles in 
the right direction. Then we put the best foot for- 
ward, and urged our way as fast as possible. In the 
afternoon it rained very hard ; the roads were muddy 
and slippery. We had slept none the night before, 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



55 



and had been, of course, very much excited. In this 
state of mind and of body, just before dark, we 
stopped in a little patch of bushes, to discuss the ex- 
pediency of going to a house, which we saw at a 
distance, to spend the night. 

As we sat there, Cyrus became very much excited, 
and, pointing across the road, exclaimed, " Don't you 
see that animal there I." I looked, but saw nothing ; 
still he affirmed that he saw a dreadful ugly animal 
looking at us, and ready to make a spring. He be- 
gan to feel for his pistols, but I told him not to fire 
there ; but he persisted in pointing to the animal, 
although I am persuaded he saw nothing, only by the 
force of his imagination. I had some doubts about 
telling this story, lest people would not believe me ; 
but a friend has suggested to me that such things are 
not uncommon, when the imagination is strongly 
excited. 

In travelling through the rain and mud, this after- 
noon, we suffered beyond all power of description. 
Sometimes we found ourselves just ready to stand, 
fast asleep, in the middle of the road. Our feet were 
blistered all over. When Cyrus would get almost 
discouraged, I urged him on, saying we were walking 
for freedom now. " Yes," he would say, " freedom is 
good, Lewis, but this is a hard, h-a-r-d way to get it." 
This he would say, half asleep. We were so weak, 
before night, that we several times fell upon our 
knees in the road. We had crackers with us, but 
we had no appetite to eat. Fears were behind us ; 
hope before ; and we were driven and drawn as hard 
as ever men were. Our limbs and joints were so 



56 



NARRATIVE OP 



stiff that, if we took a step to the right hand or left, 
it seemed as though it would shake us to pieces. It 
was a dark, weary day to us both. 

At length, I succeeded in getting the consent of 
Cyrus to go to a house for the night. We found a 
plain farmer's family. The good man w,as all taken 
up in talking about the camp-meeting held that day, 
about three miles from his house. He only asked us 
where we were from, and we told him our home was 
in Ohio. He said the young men had behaved unac- 
countably bad at the camp-meeting, and they had but 
little comfort of it. They mocked the preachers, 
and disturbed the meeting badly. 

We escaped suspicion more readily, as I have no 
doubt, from the supposition, on the part of many, that 
we were going to the camp-meeting. Next morning, 
we called at the meeting, as it was on our way, 
bought up a little extra gingerbread against the time 
of need, and marched forward for the Ohio. When 
any one inquired why we left the meeting so soon, 
we had an answer ready : " The young men behave 
so bad, we can get no good of the meeting." 

By this time we limped badly, and we were sore 
all over. A young lady whom we met, noticing that 
we walked lame, cried out, mocking us, " O my feet, 
my feet, how sore ! " At about eleven o'clock, we 
reached the river, two miles below Ripley. The 
boatman was on the other side. We called for 
him. He asked us a few questions. This was a 
last point with us. We tried our best to appear 
unconcerned. I asked questions about the boats, 
as though I had been there before ; went to Cy- 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



57 



rus, and said, " Sir, I have no change ; will you 
lend me enough to pay my toll ? I will pay you be- 
fore we part." When we were fairly landed upon the 
northern bank, and had gone a few steps, Cyrus 
stopped suddenly, on seeing the water gush out at 
the side of the hill. Said he, " Lewis, give me that 
tin cup." " What in the world do you want of a tin 
cup now ? We have not time to stop." The cup he 
would have. Then he w r ent up to the spring, dipped 
and drank, and dipped and drank ; then he would 
look round, and drink again. " What in the world," 
said I, " are you fooling there for ? " " O," said he, 
" this is the first time I ever had a chance to drink 
water that ran out of the free dirt." Then we went 
a little further, and he sat down on a log. I urged 
him forward. " O," said he, " I must sit on this free 
timber a little while." 

A short distance further on, we saw a man, who 
seemed to watch us very closely. I asked him which 
was the best way to go, over the hill before us, or 
around it. I did this, to appear to know something 
about the location. He went off, without offering 
any obstacles to our journey. In going up the hill, 
Cyrus would stop, and lay down and roll over. "What 
in the world are you about, Cyrus ? Don't you see 
Kentucky is over there?" He still continued to roll 
and kiss the ground ; said it was a game horse that 
could roll clear over. Then he would put face to the 
ground, and roll over and over. " First time/' he 
said, " he ever rolled on free grass." 

After he had recovered a little from his sportive 
mood, we went up to the house of a good friend of 



58 



NARRATIVE OF 



the slave at Ripley. We were weary and worn 
enough; though ever since we left the river, it 
seemed as though Cyrus was young and spry as a 
colt ; but when we got where we could rest, we 
found ourselves tired. The good lady showed us 
into a good bedroom. Cyrus was skittish. He would 
not go in and lie down. " I am afraid," said he, 
"of old mistress. She is too good — too good — 
can't be so — they want to catch us both." So, to 
pacify him, I had to go out into the orchard and 
rest there. When the young men came home, he 
soon got acquainted, and felt sure they were his 
friends. From this place we were sent on by the 
friends, from place to place, till we reached Oberlin, 
Ohio, in about five weeks after I left there to go for 
Cyrus. I had encountered a good deal of peril; 
had suffered much from anxiety of feeling; but felt 
richly repaid in seeing another brother free. 

We stopped at Oberlin a few days, and then Cyrus 
started for Canada. He did not feel exactly safe. 
When he reached the lake, he met a man from 
Lexington who knew him perfectly ; indeed, the very 
man of whom his wife hired her house. This man 
asked him if he was free. He told him yes, he was 
free, and he was hunting for brother Milton, to get 
him to go back and settle with the old man for his 
freedom. Putnam told him that was all right. He 
asked Cyrus if he should still want that house his 
wife lived in. " O, yes," said Cyrus, " we will notify 
you when we don't want it any more. You tell them, 
I shall be down there in a few days. I have heard of 
Milton, and expect to have him soon to carry back 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



59 



with me." Putnam went home, and, when he found 
what a fool Cyrus had made of him, he was vexed 
enough. 4f A rascal," he said, " I could have caught 
him as well as not." 

Cyrus hastened over to Canada. He did not like 
that country so well as the states, and in a few weeks 
returned. He had already sent a letter to his wife, 
giving her an account of his successful escape, and 
urging her to join him as soon as possible. He had 
the pleasure of meeting his wife, and her three 
children by a former husband, and they have found 
a quiet resting-place, where, if the rumor of oppres- 
sion reaches them, they do not feel its scourge, nor 
its chains. And there is no doubt entertained by any 
of his friends but he can take care of himself. 

He begins already to appreciate his rights, and to 
maintain them as a freeman. The following para- 
graph concerning him was published in the Liberty 
Press about one year since: — 

"PROGRESS OF FREEDOM 

" Scene at Hamilton Village, N. Y. 

" Mr. Cyrus Clarke, a brother of the well-known Milton 
and Lewis Clarke, (all of whom, till within a short time 
since, for some twenty-five years, were slaves in Kentucky,) 
mildly, but firmly, presented his ballot at the town meeting 
board. Be it known that said Cyrus, as well as his brothers, 
are white, with only a sprinkling of the African ; just enough 
to make them bright, quick, and intelligent, and scarcely 
observable in the color except by the keen and scenting 
slaveholder. Mr. Clarke had all the necessary qualifications 
of white men to vote. 



60 



NARRATIVE OP 



"Slave. Gentlemen, here is my ballot; I wish to vote. 
(Board and by-standers well knowing him, all were aghast 
— the waters were troubled — the slave legions were 4 up in 
their might.') 

"Judge E. You can't vote ! Are you not, and have you 
not been a slave ? 

"Slave. I shall not lie to vote. I am and have been a 
slave, so called ; but I wish to vote, and I believe it my right 
and duty. 

"Judge E. Slaves can't vote. 

61 Slave. Will you just show me in your books, constitu- 
tion, or whatever you call them, where it says a slave can't 

vote ? 

" Judge E. (Pretending to look over the law, &c, well 
knowing he was * used up.') Well, well, you are a col 
ored man, and can't vote without you are worth $250. 

" Slave. I am as white as you; and don't you vote? 

" (Mr. E. is well known to be very dark ; indeed, as dark 
or darker than Clarke. The current began to set against 
Mr. E. by murmurs, sneers, laughs, and many other demon- 
strations of dislike.) 

" Judge E. Are you not a colored man? and is not your 
hair curly ? 

" Slave. We are both colored men ; and all we differ is, 
that you have not the handsome wavy curl ; you raise Goafs 
irool, and I come, as you see, a little nearer Saxony. 

" At this time the fire and fun was at its height, and was 
fast consuming the judge with public opprobrium. 

u Judge E. I challenge this man's vote, he being a col- 
ored man, and not worth $250. 

"Friends and foes warmly contested what constituted a 
colored man by the New York statute. The board finally 
came to the honorable conclusion that, to be a colored man, 
he must be at least one half blood African. Mr. Clarke, the 
slave, then voted, he being nearly full white. I have the 
history of this transaction from Mr. Clarke, in person. In 
substance it is as told me, but varying more or less from his 
language used. J. THOMPSON. 

" Paris, March, 12, 1844." 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



61 



Martha, the wife of Cyrus, had a long story of the 
wrath of the slaveholders, because he ran away. 
Monday morning she went down, in great distress, 
to the overseer to inquire for her husband. She, of 
course, was in great anxiety about him. Mr. Logan 
threatened her severely, but she, having a little mix- 
ture of the Indian, Saxon, and African blood, was 
quite too keen for them. She succeeded in so far 
lulling their suspicions as to make her escape, and 
was very fortunate in her journey to her husband. 

We remained but a short time after this in Ohio. 
I spent a few days in New York; found there a great 
many warm friends ; and, in the autumn of 1843, I 
came to old Massachusetts. Since that time, I have 
been engaged a large part of the time in telling the 
story of what I have felt and seen of slavery. 

I have generally found large audiences, and a great 
desire to hear about slavery. I have been in all the 
New England States except Connecticut; have held, 
I suppose, more than five hundred meetings in dif- 
ferent places, sometimes two or three in a place. 
These meetings have been kindly noticed by many 
of the papers, of all parties and sects. Others have 
been very bitter and unjust in their remarks, and 
tried to throw every possible obstacle in my way. A 
large majority of ministers have been willing to give 
notice of my meetings, and many of them have 
attended them. I find that most ministers say they 
are abolitionists, but truth compels me to add, that, 
in talking with them, I find many are more zealous 
to apologize for the slaveholders, than they are to 
take any active measures to do away slavery. 
6 



62 



NARRATIVE OP 



Since coming to the free states, I have been struck 
with great surprise at the quiet and peaceable man- 
ner in which families live. I had no conception that 
women could live without quarrelling, till I came into 
the free states. 

After I had been in Ohio a short time, and had 
not seen nor heard any scolding or quarrelling in the 
families where I was, I did not know how to account 
for it. I told Milton, one day, " What a faculty these 
women have of keeping all their bad feelings to them- 
selves! I have not seen them quarrel with their hus- 
bands, nor with the girls, or children, since I have 
been here." (t O," said Milton, "these women are 
not like our women in Kentucky ; they don't fight at 
all." I told him I doubted that ; " I guess they do it 
somewhere; in the kitchen, or down cellar. It can't 
be," said I, " that a woman can live, and not scold 
or quarrel." Milton laughed, and told me to watch 
them, and see if I could catch them at it. I have 
kept my eyes and ears open from that day to this, and 
I have not found the place where the women get mad 
and rave like they do in Kentucky yet. If they do it 
here, they are uncommon sly ; but I have about con- 
cluded that they are altogether different here from 
what they are in the slave states. I reckon slavery 
must work upon their minds and dispositions, and 
make them ugly. 

It has been a matter of great wonder to me, also, 
to see all the children, rich and poor, going to school. 
Every few miles I see a school-house, here; I did not 
know what it meant when I saw these houses, when 
I first came to Ohio. In Kentucky, if you should 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



63 



feed your horse only when you come to a school- 
house, he would starve to death. 

I never had heard a church bell only at Lexington, 
in my life. When I saw steeples and meeting-houses 
so thick, it seemed like I had got into another world. 
Nothing seems more wonderful to me now, than the 
different way they keep the Sabbath there, and here. 
In the country, in summer, there the people gather 
in groups around the meeting-house, built of logs, 
or around in the groves where they often meet ; one 
company, and perhaps the minister with them, are 
talking about the price of niggers, pork, and corn; 
another group are playing cards; others are swap- 
ping horses, or horse-racing; all in sight of the 
meeting-house or place of worship. After a while 
the minister tells them it is time to begin. They 
stop playing and talking for a while. If they call 
him right smart, they hear him out ; if he is " no 
account,' * they turn to their cards and horses, and 
finish their devotion in this manner. 

The slaveholders are continually telling how poor 
the white people are in the free states, and how 
much they suffer from poverty; no masters to look 
out for them. When, therefore, I came into Ohio, 
and found nearly every family living in more real 
comfort than almost any slaveholder, you may easily 
see I did not know what to make of it. I see how it 
is now ; every man in the free states works ; and as 
they work for themselves, they do twice as much as 
they would do for another. 

In fact, my wonder at the contrast between the 
slave and the free states has not ceased yet. The 



64 



NARRATIVE OF 



more I see here, the more I know slavery curses 
the master as well as the slave. It curses the soil, 
the houses, the churches, the schools, the burying- 
grounds, the flocks, and the herds ; it curses man 
and beast, male and female, old and young. It 
curses the child in the cradle, and heaps curses 
upon the old man as he lies in his grave. Let 
all the people, then, of the civilized world get 
up upon Mount Ebal, and curse it with a long and 
bitter curse, and with a loud voice, till it withers 
and dies ; till the year of jubilee dawns upon the 
south, till the sun of a Free Day sends a beam 
of light and joy into every cabin. 

I wish here sincerely to recognize the hand of 
a kind Providence in leading me from that terrible 
house of bondage, for raising me up friends in a 
land of strangers, and for leading me, as I hope, to 
a saving knowledge of the truth as it is in Christ. 
A slave cannot be sure that he will always enjoy 
his religion in peace. Some of them are beaten 
for acts of devotion. I can never express to God 
all the gratitude which I owe him for the many 
favors I now enjoy. I try to live in love with all 
men. Nothing would delight me more than to take 
the worst slaveholder by the hand, even Mrs. Ban- 
ton, and freely forgive her, if I thought she had 
repented of her sins. While she, or any other 
man or woman, is trampling down the image of 
God, and abusing the life out of the poor slave, I 
cannot believe they are Christians, or that they 
ought to be allowed the Christian name for one 
moment. I testify against them now, as having none 



LEWIS CLARKE. 



65 



of the spirit of Christ. There will be a cloud of 
swift witnesses against them at the day of judgment. 
The testimony of the slave will be heard then. He 
has no voice at the tribunals of earthly justice, but 
he will one day be heard; and then such revelations 
will be made, as will fully justify the opinion which I 
have been compelled to form of slaveholders. They 
are a Seed of evil-doers — corrupt are they — they 
have done abominable works, 
6* 



NARRATIVE 

OF 

MILTON CLARKE . 



PREFACE. 



The Narrative of Lewis Clarke was published 
a year since; and a large edition — three thousand 
copies — was exhausted in less than a year. There is 
a call for more ; and Milton Clarke has concluded 
to add a few of the incidents of his life, and a more 
particular account of the attempt to kidnap him in 
Ohio. I have no doubt, that, with the slight mistakes 
in regard to circumstances incident to things so long 
kept only in memory, the following Narrative, as well 
as that which precedes, may be relied on as true. It 
is not among the least interesting of the marks of 
progress in the cause of Freedom, that now, from 
Ohio, the assistant kidnappers of Jerry Phinney are 
calling loudly upon their principals in Kentucky to 
help them out of prison,, where they suffer justly. 
This shows that neither Ohio, nor any other free 
state, can much longer be made the hunting-ground 
of the slaveholders. 

J. C L. 

May, 1846. 



NARRATIVE OF MILTON CLARKE. 



When I was about six years of age, the estate of 
Samuel Campbell, my grandfather, was sold at auction. 
His sons and daughters were all present at the sale, ex- 
cept Mrs, Banton. Among the articles and animals 
put upon the catalogue, and placed in the hands of 
the auctioneer, were a large number of slaves. When 
every thing else had been disposed of, the question 
arose among the heirs, " What shall be done with 
Letty (my mother) and her children?" John and 
William Campbell came to mother, and told her they 
would divide her family among the heirs, but none 
of them should go out of the family. One of the 
daughters — to her everlasting honor be it spoken — 
remonstrated against any such proceeding. Judith, 
the wife of Joseph Logan, told her brothers and 
sisters, " Letty is our own half sister, and you know 
it ; father never intended they should be sold." Her 
protest was disregarded, and the auctioneer was 
ordered to proceed. My mother, and her infant son 
Cyrus, about one year old, were put up together and 
sold for $500 ! ! Sisters and brothers selling their 
own sister and her children ! ! My venerable old 



70 



NARRATIVE O? 



father, who was now in extreme old age, and debil- 
itated from the ivounds received in the war of the 
Revolution, was, nevertheless, roused by this outrage 
upon his rights and upon those his children. 

" He had never expected," he said, " when fighting 
for the liberties of this country, to see his own wife and 
children sold in it to the highest bidder." But what 
were the entreaties of a quivering old man, in the 
sight of eight or ten hungry heirs ? The bidding 
went on ; and the whole family, consisting of mother 
and eight children, were sold at prices varying from 
$300 to $800. Lewis, the reader will recollect, had 
been previously given to that paragon of excellence, 
Mrs. Banton. It was my fortune, with my mother, 
brother Cyrus, and sister Delia, to fall into the hands 
of aunt Judith ; and had she lived many years, or had 
her husband shared with her the virtues of humanity, 
I should probably have had far less to complain of, 
for myself and some of the family. She was the 
only one of all the family that I was ever willing to 
own, or call my aunt. 

The third day after the sale, father, mother, Delia, 
Cyrus, and myself, started for our home at Lexington, 
with Mr. Joseph Logan, a tanner. He was a tall, 
lank, gray-eyed, hard-hearted, cruel wretch ; coarse, 
vulgar, debauched, corrupt and corrupting ; but in 
good and regular standing in the Episcopalian 
church. We were always protected, however, from 
any very great hardships during the life of his first 
wife. 

At her death, which happened in about two years, 
we were sincere mourners; although her husband 



MILTON CLARKE. 



71 



was probably indulging far other emotions than those 
of sorrow. He had already entered, to a considera- 
ble extent, into arrangements for marrying a younger 
sister of his wife, Miss Minerva Campbell. She was a 
half fool, besides being underwitted. If any body falls 
into such hands, they will know what Solomon meant, 
when he said, " Let a bear robbed of her whelps 
meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly." There 
are a great many bears in Kentucky, but none of 
them quite equal to a slaveholding woman. 

I had a regular battle with this young mistress, 
when I was about eleven years old. She had lived 
in the family while her sister was alive, and from the 
clemency of Judith, in protecting the slaves, the 
authority of Miss Minerva was in a very doubtful 
state when she came to be installed mistress of the 
house. Of course, every occasion was sought to show 
her authority. She attempted to give me a regular 
breaking-in, at the age above stated. 1 used the 
weapons of defence "God and nature gave me;" 
I bit and scratched, and well nigh won the battle ; 
but she sent for Logan, whose shadow was more than 
six feet, and I had to join the non-resistance society 
right ofT. It was all day with me then. He dashed 
me down upon my head, took the raw hide and 
ploughed up my young back, and that grinning fool, 
his wife, was looking on ; this was a great aggrava- 
tion of the flogging, that she should see it and rejoice 
over it. 

When I was about twelve years old, I was put 
to grinding bark in the tannery. Not understanding 
the business, I did not make such progress as Logan 



72 



NARRATIVE OF 



thought I ought to make. Many a severe beating 
was the consequence. At one time, the shoulder of 
the horse was very sore, and Logan complained that 
I did not take good care of him. I tried to defend 
myself as well as I could, but his final argument was 
thumping my head against the post. Kings have 
their last argument, and so have slaveholders. I 
took the old horse into the stable, and, as I had 
no one else to talk with, I held quite a dialogue 
with old Dobbin. Unluckily for me, Logan was 
hid in another stall, to hear his servant curse him. 
I told the horse, " Master complains that I don't grind 
bark enough; complains that I work you too hard; 
don't feed you enough ; now, you old rascal, you 
know it is a lie, the whole of it ; I have given you 
fifteen ears of corn three times a day, and that is 
enough for any horse ; Caesar says that is enough, 
and Moses says that is enough ; now eat your corn, 
and grow fat." At the end of this apostrophe, I 
gave the old horse three good cuts on the face, and 
told him to walk up and eat the corn. I then stepped 
out into the floor and threw in fifteen ears more, and 
said, " See if the old man will think that is enough." 

Scarcely had the words passed my lips, when I heard 
a rustling in the next stall, and Joe Logan was before me, 
taller than ever I saw him before, and savage as a can- 
nibal. I made for the door, but he shut it upon rne, 
and caught me by one leg. He began kicking and 
cuffing, till, in my despair, I seized him, like a young 
bear, by the leg, with my teeth, and, with all his tear- 
ing and wrenching, he could not get me off. He 
called one of the white hands from the tanyard, and 



MILTON CLARKE. 



73 



just as he came in, Logan had his knife oat, and was 
about to cut ray throat. The man spoke, and told 
him not to do that. They tied me and gave me 
three hundred lashes ; my back was peeled from my 
shoulders to my heels. 

Mother was in the house, and heard my screams, 
but did not dare to come near me. Logan left me 
weltering in my blood ; mother then came and took 
me up, and carried me into her own room. About 
8 o'clock that evening, Logan came out and asked 
mother if I was alive or dead. She told him I was 
alive. I laid there four weeks, before I went out of 
the door. Let fathers and mothers think what it 
would be to see a child whipped to the very gate of 
death, and not be permitted to say a word in their 
behalf. Words can never tell what I suffered, nor 
what mother suffered. I shuddered at the counte- 
nance of Joseph Logan for many months after. The 
recollection now makes me shudder, as T go back to 
that bitter day. 

Such a cruel wretch could not, of course, manage 
with much discretion a silly, but high-tempered 
wife. Their social intercourse was like the meeting 
of the sirocco and the earthquake. She would 
scorch terribly with her provoking tongue ; he would 
shake her terribly in his anger. Finally, he held her 
out at arms length and gave her the horsewhip to 
the tune of about thirty stripes. She hopped and 
danced at this, to the infinite amusement of the slaves 
when we were alone ; of course, in their presence we 
were very serious. We had good reason for rejoic- 
ing in this flogging, for she was never known to pre- 
7 



74 



NARRATIVE OF 



scribe raw hide for a slave after that. She soon, how- 
ever, left her husband and went to live with Mrs, 
Anderson, where, by her cruelty, she showed her re- 
form was only temporary. 

Then began that series of bitter cruelties by which 
Logan attempted to subdue sister Delia to his diabol- 
ical wishes. She was, at this time, some sixteen 
or eighteen years of age. At first, persuasion was 
employed. This was soon exchanged for stripes. 

One morning, I was a witness of the torture which 
he inflicted. Sister asked me to speak to mother ; 
I ran and called her ; she hesitated a good deal, but 
the shrieks of her child at length overcame every 
fear, and she rushed into the presence of, and began 
to remonstrate with, this brute. He was only the 
more enraged. He turned around with all the ven- 
geance of a fury, and knocked poor mother down, 
and injured her severely ; when I saw the blood 
streaming from the shoulders of my sister, and my 
mother knocked down, I became completely frantic, 
and ran and caught an axe, and intended to cut him 
down at a blow. My mother had recovered her feet 
just in time to meet me at the door. She persuaded 
me not to go into the spinning-room, where this 
whipping took place. Sister soon came out, covered 
with blood. Mother washed her wounds as well as 
she could. In six days after this, sister was chained 
to a gang of a hundred and sixty slaves, and sent 
down to New Orleans. Mother begged for her 
daughter ; said she would get some one to buy her ; 
a gentleman offered to do this, after she was sold to 
the slave-driver : but the inhuman monster was inex- 



MILTON CLARKE, 



75 



orable ; this was the punishment threatened, if he 
was refused the sacrifice of her innocence. 

Sister was therefore carried down the river to 
New Orleans, kept three or four weeks, and then put 
up for sale. The day before the sale, she was taken 
to the barber's, her hair dressed, and she was fur- 
nished with a new silk gown, and gold watch, and 
every thing done to set off her personal attractions, 
previous to the time of the bidding. The first bid 
was $500 ; then $800. The auctioneer began to 
extol her virtues. Then $1000 was bid. The auc- 
tioneer says, "If you only knew the reason why 
she is sold, you would give any sum for her. She 
is a pious, good girl, member of the Baptist church, 
warranted to be a virtuous girl." The bidding 
grew brisk. "Twelve J" "thirteen," "fourteen," 

fifteen," " sixteen hundred," was at length bid, 
and she was knocked off to a Frenchman, named 
CovaL He wanted her to live with him as his house- 
keeper and mistress. This she utterly refused, unless 
she were emancipated and made his wife. In about 
one month, he took her to Mexico, emancipated, and 
married her. She visited France with her husband, 
spent a year or more there and in the West Indies. 
In four or five years after her marriage, her husband 
died, leaving her a fortune of twenty or thirty thou- 
sand dollars. A more just and remarkable reward 
of sterling virtue in an unprotected girl, cannot be 
found in all the books of romance. 

But I must return to my own story. Soon after 
the sale of my sister, the father of Joseph Logan, 
T)eacon Archibald Logan, purchased his estate in 



76 



NARRATIVE OF 



Lexington, and all his slaves; mother, Cyrus, and 
myself, among the number. I was then valued at 
one thousand dollars. Mother, I should rather say, 
was given away in her old age to old Mrs. Logan, the 
wife of the deacon. In three or four years after this, 
Joseph Logan came to the house of his father, sick 
with the consumption, and died. He professed to be 
penitent upon his death-bed, and asked forgiveness 
of mother and myself for all the wrong done to our 
family. 

I was then taken by the deacon for his body ser- 
vant; travelled with him, and was often supposed to 
be his son. 

I have little complaint to make of the old man, 
except that he kept me a slave. Cyrus was. put into 
the tanyard, and fared very differently. For some 
reason, the old deacon treated him with great cruelty. 

In 1833, my poor mother ended her sorrows, cut 
off very suddenly by the cholera. Our condition was 
then desolate indeed. Father had died several years 
before. The prospect before us was interminable, 
lonely bondage. The thought of it sometimes drove 
us almost to despair. I soon began to hire my time, 
by the day, or week, as I could make a bargain. I 
was a very good bass drummer, and had learned to play 
on the bugle. The deacon would hire me out to play 
for volunteers, that were then and soon after training 
for a campaign in Texas. He received three dollars 
for half a day for my services. When I found this 
out, I sold my bugle and drum. He was very sorry 
I had sold them ; would have bought them himself, 
if he had known I wanted to sell. I told him, I 



MILTON CLARKE, 



77 



was tired of playing. We soon compromised the 
matter, however ; I bought my instruments, and was 
to have half I earned with them. I then began to 
lay up money, and had a shrewd notion that I could 
take care of myself. I frequently heard the Decla- 
ration of Independence read ; and listened with great 
wonder to the Texas orators, as they talked about 
liberty. I thought it might be as good for me as for 
others. I could never reason myself into the belief, 
that the old deacon had any right to the annual rent 
which I paid for my own body. I then was paying 
to this old miser two hundred dollars a year for my 
time, boarding and clothing myself. I joined a com- 
pany of musicians, and we made money fast and 
easy by attending balls and parties. 

But before leaving the deacon, I wish to give a 
few recollections of his family matters, to illustrate 
the workings of good society among slaveholders. 
The deacon lost his wife about the time of the death 
of my mother. He was an elder of the Presbyterian 
church, and afterwards became a deacon of a Con- 
gregational church ; and there was a widow named 
Robb, of the same communion ; a good name for the 
whole clan of slaveholding tyrants, male and female; 
they are all robbers of the worst kind. The good 
women of the deacon's acquaintance visited him, and 
pitied his lonely condition, and hinted, that Mrs. Robb 
would be a great comfort to him in his affliction. 

The negotiation was commenced, and soon ter- 
minated^ to the present satisfaction of both parties. 
But two old people, with habits firmly fixed, do not 
often, like kindred drops, mingle into one. Each one 
7 * 



78 



NARRATIVE OF 



wanted to keep their household fixings for their own 
children. 

She was younger than the deacon, more artful, 
and could easily outwit him. The daughters of Mr. 
Logan had come to the house, before the marriage, 
and carefully marked the bedding. The deacon gave 
me the keys of his rooms, and attempted to limit the 
freedom of his new spouse in the house of which she 
was installed mistress. This produced confusion and 
abundance of sparring. She treated her slaves better 
than she did his, and this set all the old servants 
against her. She got to the old man's closet, drank 
his wine, and then charged it to the slaves. We were 
not long in pointing out to the deacon the true 
channel in which his wine flowed. Her servants 
were frequently despatched, with buckets of sugar 
and coffee, to the daughters of Mrs. Logan. It was 
nuts for us to find this out and tell the deacon. 
Here was new fuel for the fires of dispute that 
crackled every day in this habitation of the Patri- 
archs. They quarrelled openly; it was a public 
scandal ; till, one day, his old withered hand seized 
the horsewhip and crowned their bliss with a dozen 
or two good smart lashes. The flame -was all 
abroad, then. Many waters could not quench the 
fires of this loving pair. She left him, and her son- 
in-law threatened -the old man's back with the cow- 
skin. 

The church interposed and called him to account. 
He owned up, as to the whipping ; but justified, under 
the plea, that he afflicted the body for the good of the 
soul. It would not do. He bought off from his 



MILTON CLARKE. 



79 



wife, and she left him. The church excommuni- 
cated the deacon. He made application, very soon, 
for admission to a Congregational church. They 
would not receive him, till he made some sort of 
a confession. He acknowledged the fact, but plead 
a good motive — the benefit of her soul. He was 
at length received, and presently began to garner 
the sanctuary of oppression — a southern church. 
The house was soon carpeted ; the pulpit was ren- 
ovated, dressed in velvet ; a new bell hung, and 
new life infused into the waning church, which 
had just received such an ornament to its virtues 
and holiness. The unlucky minister had a little 
bit of decency, if not of conscience left. He had 
opposed the whole proceeding. Educated at the 
north, he one day dropped some word of con- 
demnation of the sin of oppression. This was too 
much for the deacon. The minister was forthwith 
dismissed, and a more supple tool employed. The 
old man could hardly be trained to the exemplary 
habits becoming an office-bearer of the standards of 
Zion. Frequent attempts were made to discipline 
him ; but the deacon, with his great wealth, had such 
ascendency over the minds of his brethren, that a vote 
of censure or suspension could never be obtained. 
He lived and died in " good and regular standing," so 
far as came to my knowledge or belief. 

The only beating that I had, after I came into the 
hands of Deacon Logan, was at the instigation of 
his son Joseph. Only about thirty lashes were put 
on by the public whipper, in the watch-house. I was 
tied, hands and feet, and whipped by the sejrvile 



80 



NARRATIVE OF 



wretch, who does this business at a dollar a head for 
men — the same for women. 

I did not witness as many scenes of cruelty among 
the slaves as many have ; I was usually employed 
about the house, and was not in a situation to see 
what others have. One or two instances I can men- 
tion of what I personally knew of the cruelty of 
slaveholders. Joseph Logan had a slave, named 
Priscilla. She did the work in the kitchen. One 
morning, the biscuit came upon the table badly 
scorched. Mistress Minerva threw them in her face, 
struck her with the shovel, then heated the tongs, 
and took her by the nose. She raised her hand, to 
resist this act of wanton cruelty. Logan was called 
for, came out, and knocked her down with a large 
club ; called in his men, and had her tied and beaten 
most unmercifully. He then put a log chain on her, 
and compelled her to drag it for days. She never 
recovered ; her mind was destroyed, and she was 
soon after sold, for little or nothing, as an idiot. 

Joseph Logan had another slave, named Peter. 
The wife of Peter was the slave of Thomas 
Kennedy, who lived forty-five miles from Lexington. 
Kennedy consented to sell Milly only on condition 
that, if she was ever resold, he should have the refusal 
of her. She lived with her husband till she had two 
children, and then her mistress, Minerva, resolved 
she should be sold. The tears and entreaties of her 
husband, the despair upon the countenance of the 
victim herself, were all in vain. She, with her two 
children, was sold to Warren Orford, one of the 
soul. drivers, for twelve or thirteen hundred dollars. 



MILTON CLARKE. 



81 



The husband became melancholy, sank down under 
his burden, turned to the intoxicating cup, and 
became a drunkard. 

In the year 1838, I hired my time of Deacon 
Logan, for the purpose of going in a steamboat up 
and down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. I was at 
New Orleans three or four times, before I could find 
any thing of sister Delia. At last, through the 
assistance of an old acquaintance, I found where she 
lived. I went to the house, but I was so changed, by 
the growth of seven or eight years, that she did not 
know me. When I told her who I was, she was very 
incredulous ; and, to test my identity, brought for- 
ward a small article of clothing, and asked me if 
ever I had seen it. I told her it once belonged to 
mother. " Ah ! then," she said, " you must be my 
brother." She was very glad to see me, and hear 
from her brothers and sisters. 

The next summer, she visited Kentucky with me, 
and spent two or three months. Deacon Logan 
treated her with great politeness; said his son did 
very wTong to sell her as he did ; that, if he had then 
owned the family, it should not have been done. 
While in Kentucky, she advanced the money, in 
part, to pay for the freedom of Dennis, and, as soon 
as she returned to New Orleans, she sent up the 
balance. 

She also made arrangements with Deacon Logan, 
to purchase brother Cyrus and myself for sixteen 
hundred dollars. 

In the autumn of 1840, I started to go to New 
Orleans, to get the money to pay for Cyrus and 



82 



NARRATIVE OF 



myself. When I arrived at Louisville, I met the sor- 
rowful tidings that sister was dead ! This was a 
sudden, withering blast of all my well-founded hopes 
of deliverance from slavery. The same letter that 
brought the tidings of her death also informed me 
that she had left her property, by will, to me, for 
the purpose of buying myself, and all the family, from 
bondage. I was now told that, if I went down and 
took the property, my master could claim and take 
the whole of it. I went directly back to Lexington, 
and asked Mr. Logan to make me free, and I woujd 
pay him a thousand dollars, the first money that I 
received from the estate of my sister. This he said 
he would not do ; but he gave me a free paper, to 
pass up and down the river as I pleased, and to trans- 
act any business as though I was free. With this 
paper, I started for New Orleans, but could get no 
more than sixty dollars and a suit of clothes. The 
person with whom it was left, said it was in real 
estate, and he had no authority to sell it. I then 
began to think that the day of my freedom was a 
great way off. I concluded, with a great many other 
persons in desperate circumstances, to go to Texas. 
I took boat for Galveston. Here it looked worse 
than slavery, if any thing can be worse. I soon 
returned, and came up to Louisville. Here I met 
three slaves of Doctor Graham, of Harrodsburg, 
Kentucky. Their names were Henry, Reuben, and 
George ; all smart, fine fellows, good musicians, and 
yielding the doctor a handsome income. In the same 
■company were three others, all of the same craft. 
Now/ 5 said I, " boys, is the time to strike for lib- 



MILTON CLARKE. 



83 



erty. I go for Ohio to-morrow. What say you 1 " 
They pondered the question, and we all determined 
to start, as a company of musicians, to attend a great 
ball in Cincinnati — and, sure enough, it was the 
grandest ball we ever played for. We came to Cin- 
cinnati, and the friends there advised us to go farther 
north. Doctor Graham's boys struck for Canada, 
while I stopped at Oberlin, Ohio. It was well they 
did, for the doctor was close upon them, offering a 
large reward. He reached Detroit within a few 
hours after they had crossed the ice to Maiden. He 
attempted to hire some one to go over, and capture 
them ; no one would attempt this. He hired a man, 
at last, to go over and hire them to get on a boat, 
and go to Toledo, to play for a ball. Doctor Graham 
was to be in the boat, when it touched at Maiden. 
For some reason, the boys were quite cautious, and 
very reluctant to go. When the wolf in sheep's 
clothing offered them five hundred dollars to go and 
play for one ball, they were more suspicious than 
ever. When the boat touched at the wharf, the boys 
were on the wharf, playing a gypsy waltz, a great 
favorite of Doctor Graham's. When the doctor 
found his plan did not work, sure enough, he came 
out to hear his favorite singers. He landed, and 
spent several days in fruitless endeavors to persuade 
them to return to Kentucky. They still persist in 
preferring a monarchy to the patriarchal form of 
government. 

While at Oberlin, there was an attempt to capture 
a Mr. Johnson and his wife, residents in that place. 
They had once, to be sure, had a more southern 



84 



NARRATIVE OF 



home ; but they believed the world was free for them 
to choose a home in, as well as for others. Johnson 
worked in a blacksmith's shop, with another man. To 
this individual he confided the name and place of the 
robber who had claimed him in Ohio. This wretch 
went to another, blacker-hearted one, named Bene- 
dict, of Illyria. Let no mother ever use that name 
again for her new-born son. It was disgraced 
enough by Benedict Arnold — it should, with him, be 
covered in oblivion. But this lawyer, Benedict of 
Illyria, has made the infamy around that name 
thicker and blacker than it was before. He wrote to 
the pretended owner of Johnson where he could be 
found. In hot haste he came: but, thanks to an 
honest justice, his evidence was not sufficient. He 
returned for better testimony ; as he came back, he 
was suddenly grasped by the hand of death, and 
died within ten miles of Oberlin, with an oath upon 
his lips. Johnson and his wife broke jail, and were 
carried forward to Canada. There were a great 
many forwarding houses in Ohio at that time ; they 
have greatly increased since, and nearly all of them 
are doing a first-rate business. 

During the summer of 1841, the emigration to 
Canada, through Oberlin, was very large. I had the 
pleasure of giving the " right hand of fellowship " to 
a goodly number of my former -acquaintances and 
fellow-sufferers. The masters accused me of stealing 
several of them. This is a great lie. I never stole 
one in my life. I have assisted several to get into 
possession of the true owner, but I never assisted any 
man to steal another away from himself. God has 



MILTON CLARKE. 85 

given every man the true title-deed to himself, written 
upon his face. It cannot be blotted entirely out. The 
slaveholders try hard to do it, but it can yet be read ; 
all other titles are shams and forgeries. Among others, 
I assisted a Mrs. Swift, and her two children, to get 
over to Canada, where they can read titles more 
clearly than they do in some of the states. This was 
brought up as a heavy charge against me by Mr. 
Postlewaite, the illustrious catchpole of the slave- 
holders. 

In the autumn of this year, I was delighted to meet 
brother Lewis at Oberlin. The happiness which 
we both experienced at meeting each other, as we 
supposed, securely free, in a free state, may be well 
imagined. 

In 1842, there were nine slaves reached Oberlin 
by one arrival, all from one plantation. A Mr. Ben- 
ningale, of Kentucky, was close upon them, impiously 
claiming that he had property in these images of God ; 
ay, that they were property, and entirely his, to all 
intents and purposes. This is not the doctrine taught 
by a great many good men in Ohio. These men 
came to Oberlin. The next day, Benningale arrived. 
He lined the lake with watchmen. SJCUCtttCt (do, 
printers, put that name in black type, if you can) 
of Illyria was on the alert ; thirty pieces of silver 
were always the full price of innocent blood with 
him Benningale, finding they were hid in the vil- 
lage, threatened to burn the town. The colored 
people were on guard all night. They met two per- 
sons, whom they suspected as spies of the kidnap- 
pers. They told them, if they caught them out again, 
8 



! 



86 



NARRATIVE OF 



they should be hung right up, as spies against lib- 
erty. The fugitives were at length put into a wagon, 
carried to the lake, and shipped for Canada. The 
pursuers offered a thousand dollars for their arrest. 
No one was found sufficiently enterprising to claim 
the reward. They landed safe upon the other side. 
Soon after this, there were seven more slaves arrived 
at Oberlin. The miserable Benedict, assisted by the 
Chapmans, set their traps around the village. Seven 
hundred dollars reward was offered for their arrest. 
Power of attorney had been sent on to the traitor 
Benedict. The slaves were kept concealed, till, as in 
the case of Moses, it was no longer safe for them. 
There were six men and one woman in the company. 
A plan was contrived to put the kidnappers upon a 
false scent. Six. colored men were selected to per- 
sonate the men, and I was dressed in female attire, 
to be passed off for the woman. A telltale was in- 
formed that the slaves would start for the lake at 
such a time, and go in a certain direction. He was 
solemnly enjoined not to tell a word of it. Those 
who knew him understood what he would do. The 
secret was too precious for him to keep. He ran 
right to Benedict with it. We left Oberlin in one 
direction, and the real objects of pursuit started, soon 
after, upon another road. The ruse took ; Bene- 
dict and Company were in full pursuit, with sheriff, 
writ, and all the implements of kidnapping. We 
selected one of our number, George Perry, to act 
as spokesman for the gang. Just as we arrived at 
the village of Illyria, eight miles from Oberlin, Ben- 
edict and Company surrounded our carriage, and 



MILTON CLARKE. 



87 



ordered the driver to stop. Piatt, the driver, chal- 
lenged his authority. Benedict pulled out his adver- 
tisement, six men and one woman, with the descrip- 
tion of their persons. Piatt told him he thought they 
were not the persons he was after. The traitor 
affirmed he knew they were. The driver turned 
to his passengers, and said he could do no more for 
them. George then began to play his part: " Well, 
'den, 'dis nigger must get out." We accordingly 
left the carriage, and were conducted into the tavern. 
In the tavern were two travellers, who were very in- 
quisitive. " Where are you from 1 " George answered, 
" Don't care where I from." Benedict, when he be- 
gan to suspect that all was not exactly right, came up 
to me for a more minute examination of my person. 
I had kept my head and face under my hood and 
cloak. He ordered me to hold up my head. George 
says, " Let 'dat gal alone, Mr. white man ; de nigger 
gal plague enough in slave state — you just let her 
alone, here, if you please. ,, One of the travellers 
called for cider ; George stepped up and drank it for 
him. The table was furnished for some of the guests, 
and George, without any ceremony, declared " 'Dis 
nigger hungry," and swept, the table for himself and 
comrades. The landlord threatened to flog him. The 
colored men all spoke up together, " You strike 'dat 
nigger if you dare." At last, they got a justice of 
the peace ; but he had been let into the whole secret. 
Benedict began his plea; produced his evidence; 
said that ungrateful girl (pointing to me) had left a 
kind mistress, right in the midst of a large iron- 
ing ! ! ! The justice finally said, he did not see but he 



88 



NARRATIVE OF 



must give us up to Mr. Benedict as slaves, fugitives 
from service. Our friends then gave the signal, and 
I threw off my bonnet and cloak, and stood up a man 
Such a shout as the spectators raised would do the 
heart of freedom good. " Why, your woman has 
turned into a man, Mr. Benedict." " It may be these 
others, that appear to be men, are all women." Bene- 
dict saw through the plot, and took his saddle with- 
out any rejoinder to his plea. The tavern-keeper 
ordered us out of the house, and we took carriage 
for Oberlin. Meanwhile the real objects of pursuit 
were sailing on the waters of the blue lake. 

Benedict was terribly angry at me. He swore he 
would have me captured. He wrote immediately to 
Deacon Logan, that no slaves could be captured there 
while Milton Clarke was at large. 

The slaveholders of Lexington had a meeting, and 
determined to send a Mr. Postlewaite, a crack slave- 
breaker, and a Mr. M'Gowan, after me. They came 
and lingered about Oberlin, watching their opportu- 
nity. They engaged two wretches named Chapman, 
of Illyria, to assist in the capture. Brother Lewis 
and I went up to Madison, Lake county, to spend a 
few days. We had a meeting on Sabbath evening, at 
which we addressed the people. There was a traitor 
there named W T arner, from Lexington, who told Pos- 
tlewaite where we were. Monday morning, my brother 
and myself rode up to Dr. Merriam's, accompanied 
by two or three of Mr. Winchester's family, with 
whom we had spent the Sabbath. I sat a few min- 
utes in the carriage; and a little girl out of health, 
the niece of Dr. Merriam, and his own daughter, 



MILTON CLARKE. 



89 



came out and wanted to ride. I took them in, 
and had not driven a mile when a close carriage 
overtook and passed me, wheeled right across the 
road, and four men leaped out of it and seized my 
horse. I had no conjecture who they were. I asked 
them what they wanted — " if money, I have only fifty 
cents in the world ; you are welcome to that." u We 
want not money, but you ! " The truth then flashed 
upon my mind in a moment — " They are kidnappers. " 

I jumped from the carriage for the purpose of run- 
ning for life. My foot slipped, and I fell. In a mo- 
ment, four men were upon me. They thrust my head 
down upon the ground, bound me hand and foot, put 
me into the carriage, and started for Judge Page's ; 
a judge prepared beforehand for their purposes. 
Soon after we started, we met a man in the road. 
I spoke to him, and asked him to take care of the 
girls in the buggy, and to tell Lewis the kidnap- 
pers from Kentucky had got me. Postlewaite and 
M'Gowan took off my hat, and gave me a beating 
upon the head. One of the Chapmans spoke and 
said, " Now we have got you, my good fellow ; you 
are the chap that has enticed away so many slaves ; 
we will take care of you ; we will have Lewis soon." 
They then took me to Mr. Judge Page. The sheriff 
of the county was there. He asked me what I had 
done, that they had tied me up so close. " Have 
you murdered any body?" I said, " No." "Have 
you been stealing?" " No, sir." " What have you 
done ? " " Nothing, sir." " What have they tied you 
for, then ? " Postlewaite told him it was none of his 
business. The sheriff said it was his business, and, 
8* 



<J0 



NARRATIVE OF 



" if he has committed no crime, you must untie him." 
He then came up to take off the cords from me. 
Postlewaite drew his pistols, and threatened to shoot 
him. Judge Page told the sheriff he had better not 
touch the gentleman's property. The sheriff said 
he would see whose property he was. By this time 
the alarm was spread, and a large company had gath- 
ered around the tavern. The sheriff told the people 
to see that that man was not removed till he came 
back. He went out, and summoned the posse of 
farmers in every direction. They left their ploughs, 
and jumped upon their horses, with the collars yet on 
their necks, and rode with all speed for the scene of 
action. " The kidnappers had got the white nigger," 
was the watchword. 

Postlewaite began to be alarmed. He asked Mr. 
Page which was the best way for him to go. Could 
he go safely to the lake, and take a steamboat for 
Cleveland ? " Why, no, the abolitionists watch all 
the landing-places." Could he go to Painesville ? 
" Why, no, General Paine, a red-hot abolitionist, is 
there." Postlewaite asked for a place to take me, 
where I should be secure. They carried me to the 
counting-room of the judge. They then began to 
coax. The judge said, " You better go back, Clarke, 
willingly; it will be better for you, when you get 
there." " Did not your master treat you well ? " 
asked the very gracious Mr. Postlewaite. " Yes," I 
said, " he treated me well ; no fault to find with him 
on that score." " What did you run away for, 
then? " "I came, sir, to get my freedom. I offered 
him eight hundred dollars for my liberty, and he 



MILTON CLARKE. 



91 



would not take it. I had paid him about that much 
for my time, and I thought I might as well have what 
I earned, as to pay it to him." " Well, sir, if you had 
come off alone, the deacon would not have cared so 
much about it ; but you led others off ; and now we 
are going to carry you back, and whip you, on the 
public square in Lexington." 

The judge had appointed three o'clock in the 
afternoon for my trial, as my friends said they wished 
to procure evidence that I came away with the con- 
sent of Deacon Logan. In the mean time, Postle- 
waite & Co. were full of joy at their success, and 
despatched a letter to Lexington, announcing the 
capture of Milton Clarke, and assuring their friends 
there, that they should have Lewis before sundown. 
" We shall be in Lexington with them about Thurs- 
day or Friday." This was great news to the dea- 
con and his friends; but, alas for them, the result 
was not exactly to answer to the expectation. They 
assembled in great numbers on both days, as I have 
been told, and watched, with eager interest, the 
arrival of the stage ; but no Clarke, and no Postle- 
waite, were in it. Many a triumph has been enjoyed 
only in anticipation. 

Dinner came on, at length, and I was moved back 
into the tavern. Postlewaite had a rope around me, 
which he kept in his hand all the time. They called 
for dinner for six — the driver and myself among the 
number. When they sat down, I was placed at a 
short distance from the table. The landlady asked 
if I was not to sit down. Postlewaite said, no nigger 
should sit at table with him. She belabored him in 



92 



NARRATIVE OF 



good womanly style ; told him he was a thief, and a 
scoundrel, and that, if she was a man, he should never 
carry me away. The people were gathered, all this 
time, around the windows, and in the road, discussing 
the matter, and getting up the steam, to meet the 
Kentucky bowie knives and pistols. Postlewaite sent 
out, and got a man to come in and watch me, while 
he eat his dinner. The people at the windows were 
preparing to take me out. He watched the move- 
ment, and had me brought up nearer to the table. 

At three o'clock, my trial came on. My friends 
claimed, that I should have a trial as a white man. 
Robert Harper plead for the oppressors, assisted by 
another, whose name is unknown to me. For me, 
lawyer Chase, and another, appeared. To these 
gentlemen, and all others, who were friendly to me 
on this occasion, I feel an obligation which I can 
never express. It was to me, indeed, a dark hour, and 
they were friends in time of need. General Paine 
arrived about the commencement of the trial, and 
presented a firm front to the tyrants. My lawyer 
asked by what law they claimed me. They said, 
under the black law of Ohio. The reply was, that I 
was not a black man. Postlewaite said he arrested 
me, as the property of Archibald Logan, under the 
article of the constitution, that persons "owing ser- 
vice,'' and fleeing from one state to another, shall be 
given up to the person to whom such service is due. 
He then read the power of attorney, from Deacon 
Logan to him, authorizing him to seize one Milton 
Clarke — describing me as a person five feet two 
and a half inches tall, probably trying to pass myself 



MILTON CLARKE. 



93 



off as white. " His hair is straight, but curls a little 
at the lower end." After reading this, he read his 
other papers, showing that T was the slave of Logan. 
He produced a bill of sale, from Joseph to Deacon 
Logan. He then asked me if I had not lived, for 
several years, with Deacon Logan. General Paine 
said, if I spoke at all, I might tell the whole story — 
that I had a free pass to go where I chose, (and this 
was the fact.) The suggestion of General Paine 
frightened Postlewaite ; he told me to shut up my jaws, 
or he would smash my face in for me. The people 
cried out, " Touch him if you dare ; we will string 
you up, short metre." He then said to me, " D — n 
you ; we will pay you for all this, when we get home." 
The anxiety on my part, by this time, was beyond 
any thing I ever felt in my life. I sometimes hoped 
the people would rescue me, and then feared they 
would not. Many of them showed sympathy in their 
countenances, and I could see that the savageism of 
Postlewaite greatly increased it. My lawyer then 
asked, for what I owed service to Deacon Logan ; 
told Harper &, Co., if Mr. Clarke owed the deacon, 
present his bill, and, if it is a reasonable one, his 
friends will pay it. He then asked me if I owed 
Deacon Logan, of Kentucky. I told him no — the 
deacon, owed me about eight hundred dollars ; I 
owed him nothing. Postlewaite said, then, he arrested 
me as the goods and chattels of Logan. Mr. Chase 
said, " Mr. Clarke had permission to come into the 
free states." "Yes," said Postlewaite, "but not to 
stay so long." Finally, Mr. Chase asked, " Where 
did Joseph Logan get Ms right to Clarke ? V On this 



94 



NARRATIVE OF 



point, he had no specific evidence. He then resorted 
to the general testimony of several letters, which he 
took from his pocket. One was from General 
Coombs, another from McCauly, one from John 
Crittenden, one from Morehead, Governor Lecher, 
John Speed Smith, and, last of all, from Henry 
Clay. These gentlemen all represented Mr. Postle- 
waite as a most pious and excellent man, whose word 
was to be taken in every thing ; stating, also, that they 
knew Milton Clarke, and that he was the property 
of Deacon A. Logan. This array of names closed 
the testimony. Bob Harper then made his infamous 
plea ; said, finally, the judge could possibly do no 
otherwise than give me up, on the testimony of so 
many great names. Judge Page had received his 
fee, as I verily believe, before he gave judgment ; and 
he very soon came to the conclusion, that Deacon 
Logan had proved his claim. I was delivered over 
to the tender mercies of Postlewaite & Co. Just as 
we were going out at the door, the sheriff met us, and 
arrested Postlewaite, McGowan, and the Chapmans, 
for assault and battery on the person of Milton Clarke. 
They were told, their trial would come on the next 
day, at ten o'clock, before Justice Cunningham. 
Postlewaite swore terribly at this; said it was an 
abolition concern. Some one asked the sheriff what 
should be done with me. He said he did not want me 
— it was the others that he had arrested. I was then 
tied to Postlewaite. Some one said, "Cut him loose." 
Postlewaite replied, " The first that attempts to touch 
him, I will blow him through." I asked the people 
if I should be carried back, as - I had committed no 



MILTON CLARKE. 



95 



crime. They said, "No, no; never. " General Paine 
said he would call out the militia, before I should be 
carried back. 

Postlewaite ordered out his carriage, to accompany 
the sheriff. He drove me into it, came in with his 
partners, McGowan and the Chapmans, and Judge 
Page. We then started for Unionville, distant about 
two miles from Centreville. A very great crowd 
followed us, on every side. My friends had not been 
idle; they had been over to JefFersonville, in Ashta- 
bula county, and obtained a writ of Habeas Corpus 
for me. Unionville was upon the border of two 
counties. The road through it divided them. The 
people had fixed their carriages so that ours must 
pass upon the Ashtabula side. Soon as the wheels 
passed the border of this county, the carriage was 
stopped, and the sheriff of Ashtabula demanded the 
body of Milton Clarke. The people shouted, came 
up and unhitched the horses, and turned them face 
to the carriage. Postlewaite cried out, " Drive on." 
Driver replied, " The horses are faced about." P. 
began to be very angry. The people asked the 
driver what he was there for, assisting in such busi- 
ness as this. The poor fellow begged they would 
not harm his horses ; he did not know what they 
wanted him for, or he never would have come. He 
begged for his horses, and himself. Postlewaite said, 
if they meddled with the horses, he would shoot a 
hundred of them. The people told him, if he put 
his head out of that carriage, he would never shoot 
again. At this stage of the business, Robert Harper, 
Esq., came up, to read the riot act. The people 



96 



NARRATIVE OF 



were acting under a charter broader and older than 
any statutes passed on earth. Harper was glad to 
escape himself, or justice would have speedily been 
meted out to him. The friends came up to the car- 
riage, and told me not to be alarmed ; they would 
have me, at any rate. Among others in the crowd, 
was a huge Buckeye blacksmith, six feet tall. At 
first, he took sides with the thieves ; said he wanted 
no niggers there. My friends told him to come up to 
the carriage, and pick out the nigger, if there was 
any there. He came, and looked into the carriage 
some time, and at last, pointing to Postlewaite, said, 
" That is the nigger." The chivalric Mr. P. told 
him no man called him nigger with impunity. The 
Buckeye insisted upon it he was the nigger. P. told 
him he lied, three times. The northern lion was 
waked up, and he slapped the armed knight in the 
face. Postlewaite drew his bowie knife, and threat- 
ened to cut him. The Ohioan asked him what it 
was. He said, a bowie knife. "What are you 
going to do with it? " " Put it into you, if you put 
your head in here again." "Ay, ay, you are 
lacing to booy me, are you ? Then I'll booy you." 
He ran to the fence, and seized a sharp rail, and said 
he was going to booy, too. The sheriff, that had the 
writ to take me, let down the steps ; and the people 
called out, " Let us kill them." The man armed 
with the rail, began to beat the door, and told them 
to let me out. General Paine spoke, and urged the 
multitude not to proceed to violence. Judge Page 
began to feel quite uneasy, in his new position. He 
exhorted me to keep still, or they would kill us all. 



MILTON CLARKE. 97 

The sheriff then gave Postlewaite and Company five 
minutes' time to release me, or take the consequences ; 
said the carriage would be demolished in two minutes, 
when he spoke the word to the people. The pistols 
and bowie knives were quietly put away, and the tone 
of the stationary passengers, inside the carriage, very 
suddenly changed. Judge Page said, " Better let 
Clarke get out; they will kill us, if you don't." The 
cowardly Chapmans began to plead for mercy : " You 
can't say that we touched you, Clarke." " Yes you 
did," I told them ; " you all jumped on me at once." 
The people became more and more clamorous out- 
side the carriage — those inside more and more un- 
easy, They at length were more eager to get rid 
of me than they ever had been to catch me. " Get 
out; get out, Clarke," rung round on every side 
of me. 

Soon as my feet touched the ground, the rope was 
cut, and once more I felt free. I was hurried into a 
wagon, and, under the care of the sheriff, driven off 
toward Austinburg, while the other sheriff took the 
kidnappers in another direction into Lake county. 
They soon stopped to give me something to eat ; but 
I had no appetite for food, either then or for a week 
afterwards. 

Postlewaite hired a man to follow and watch me. 
But my friends soon contrived to put him on a 
false scent. It was now dark, and I exchanged 
seats with a Mr. Winchester, and the watch-dog soon 
found he was on the wrong trail. The sheriff that 
had me in keeping was not very careful of his charge, 
and he soon lost all knowledge of my whereabouts. 
9 



98 



NARRATIVE OF 



I was concealed for two or three days at Austinburg, 
as lonely as mortal man could well be. One night I 
went out and slept upon the haystack in the field, 
fearing they might search the house. The man who 
owned it came next day to Mr. Austin's, where I 
stopped, to know if it was so ; said, if he had known 
that a nigger slept there, he would have burned the 
hay and him all up together. " Let him go back, 
where he belongs." 

He then turned to me, and asked me if I had seen 
that nigger. I told him I had; I knew him very well. 
Mr. Austin asked him what he would say, if they 
should come and attempt to take me into slavery ; 
why, said he, " I would shoot them." His philan- 
thropy was graduated, like many others, upon noth- 
ing more substantial than color. 

In a few days I had the pleasure to learn that 
Postlewaite and Company, after a trial before Mr. 
Cunningham, had returned to Kentucky. I have 
since been told they crept into the city of Lexing- 
ton as silently as possible; that they left the stage 
before it entered the city, and went in under the 
shade of night. When they were visible, the inqui- 
ries were thick and fast, " Where are the Clarkes? 
What have you done with the Clarkes?" 

Both the little girls in the carriage when I left 
it were thrown out, and one so injured that she 
never recovered. She died in a few days. 

The citizens called a meeting at Austinburg, and 
Lewis and I began to lecture on the subject of slavery. 
From that time to the present, we have had more 
calls for meetings than we could attend. We have 



MILTON CLARKE. 



99 



been in eight different states, and hundreds of thou- 
sands have listened with interest to the story of our 
wrongs, and the wrongs of our countrymen in bonds. 
If God spares our lives, we hope to see the day when 
the trump of jubilee shall sound, and liberty shall be 
proclaimed throughout the land to all the inhabitants 
thereof. 



APPENDIX. 



A SKETCH OF THE CLARKE FiMILY.. 

BY LEWIS CLARKE. 



My mother was called a very handsome woman. 
She was very much esteemed by all who knew her ; 
the slaves looked up to her for advice. She died, 
much lamented, of the cholera, in the year 1833. I 
was not at home, and had not even the melancholy 
pleasure of following her to her grave. 

1. The name of the oldest member of the family 
was Archy. He never enjoyed very good health, but 
was a man of great ingenuity, and very much beloved 
by all his associates, colored and white. Through 
his own exertions, and the kindness of C. M. Clay, 
and one or two other friends, he procured his free- 
dom. He lived to repay Mr. Clay and others the 
money advanced for him, but not long enough to 
enjoy for many years the freedom for which he had 
struggled so hard. He paid six hundred dollars for 
himself. He died about seven years since, leaving a 



A SKETCH OF THE CLARKE FAMILY. 101 

wife and four or five children in bondage ; the in- 
heritance of the widow and poor orphans is, labor 

WITHOUT WAGES J WRONGS WITH NO REDRESS ; SEP- 
ARATION from each other for life, and no being 
to hear their complaint, but that God who is the 
widow 1 s God and Judge. " Shall I not be avenged 
on such a nation as this 1 " 

2. Sister Christiana was next to Archy in age. 
She was first married to a free colored man. By 
him she had several children. Her master did not 
like this connection, and her husband was driven 
away, and told never to be seen there again. The 
name of her master is Oliver Anderson; he is a lead- 
ing man in the Presbyterian church, and is consid- 
ered one of the best among slaveholders. Mr. An- 
derson married Polly Campbell, at the time I was 
given to Mrs. Betsey Banton. I believe she and Mrs. 
Banton have not spoken together since they divided 
the slaves at the death of their father. They are the 
only two sisters now living of the Campbell family. 

3. Dennis is the third member of our family. He 
is a free man in Kentucky, and is doing a very good 
business there. He was assisted by a Mr. William 
L. Stevenson, and also by his sister, in getting his 
freedom. He never had any knowledge of our inten- 
tion of running away, nor did he assist us in any 
manner whatever. 

4. Alexander is the fourth child of my mother. 
He is the slave of a Dr. Richardson ; has with him 
a very easy time; lives as well as a man can and be 
a slave; has no intention of running away. He lives 
very much like a second-hand gentleman, and I do 

9* 



102 



APPENDIX. 



not know as he would leave Kentucky on any con- 
dition. 

5. My mother lost her fifth child soon after it was 
born. 

6. Delia came next. Hers was a most bitter and 
tragical history. She was so unfortunate as to be 
uncommonly handsome, and, when arrived at woman's 
estate, was considered a great prize for the guilty 
passions of the slaveholders. 

7. To No. 7 I, Lewis Clarke, respond, and of me 
you have heard enough already. 

8. Milton comes next, and he is speaking for him- 
self. He is almost constantly engaged in giving lec- 
tures upon the subject of slavery; has more calls 
usually than he can attend to. 

9. Manda, the ninth child, died when she was 
about fifteen or sixteen years of age. She suffered 
a good deal from Joseph Logan's second wife. 

10. Cyrus is the youngest of the family, and lives 
at Hamilton, New York. 



103 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 

BY LEWIS CLARKE. 



The following questions are often asked me, when 
I meet the people in public, and I have thought it 
would be well to put down the answers here. 

How many holidays in a year do the slaves in 
Kentucky have? — They usually have six days at 
Christmas, and two or three others in the course of 
the year. Public opinion generally seems to require 
this much of slaveholders; a few give more, some 
less ; some none, not a day nor an hour. 

How do slaves spend the Sabbath ? — Every way 
the master pleases. There are certain kinds of work 
which are respectable for Sabbath day. Slaves are 
often sent out to salt the cattle, collect and count the 
pigs and sheep, mend fences, drive the stock from 
one pasture to another. Breaking young horses and 
mules, to send them to market, yoking young oxen, 
and training them, is proper Sabbath work; piling 
and burning brush, on the back part of the lot, 
grubbing brier patches that are out of the way, and 
where they will not be seen. Sometimes corn must 
be shelled in the corn-crib ; hemp is baled in the 



104 



APPENDIX. 



hemp-house. The still-house must be attended on 
the Sabbath. In these, and various other such like 
employments, the more avaricious slaveholders keep 
their slaves busy a good part of every Sabbath. It is 
a great day for visiting and eating, and the house 
servants often have more to do on that than on any 
other day. 

What if strangers come along, and see you at 
work? — We must quit shelling corn, and go to play 
with the cobs ; or else we must be clearing land, on 
our own account. We must cover up master's sins 
as much as possible, and take it all to ourselves. It 
is hardly fair ; for he ought rather to account for our 
sins, than we for his. 

Why did you not learn to read? — I did not dare 
to learn. I attempted to spell some words when a 
child. One of the children of Mrs. Banton went in, 
and told her that she heard Lewis spelling. Mrs. B. 
jumped up as though she had been shot. " Let me 
ever know you to spell another word, I'll take your 
heart right out of you." I had a strong desire to 
learn. But it would not do to have slaves learn 
to read and write. They could read the guide- 
boards. They could write passes for each other. 
They cannot leave the plantation on the Sabbath 
without a written pass. 

What proportion of slaves attend church on the 
Sabbath ? — In the country, not more than one in ten 
on an average. 

How many slaves have you ever known that could 
read? — I never saw more than three or four that 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 



could properly read at all. 1 never saw but one that 
could write. 

What do slaves know about the Bible? — They 
generally believe there is somewhere a real Bible, 
that came from God; but they frequently say the 
Bible now used is master's Bible ; most that they hear 
from it being, " Servants, obey your masters." 

Are families often separated? How many such 
cases have you personally known ? — I never knew a 
whole family to live together till all were grown up, 
in my life. There is almost always, in every family, 
some one or more keen and bright, or else sullen 
and stubborn slave, whose influence they, are afraid 
of on the rest of the family, and such a one must 
take a walking ticket to the south. 

There are other causes of separation. The death 
of a large owner is the occasion usually of many 
families being broken up. Bankruptcy is another 
cause of separation, and the hard-heartedness of a 
majority of slaveholders another and a more fruitful 
cause than either or all the rest. Generally there is 
but little more scruple about separating families 
than there is with a man who keeps sheep in selling 
off the lambs in the fall. On one plantation where I 
lived, there was an old slave named Paris. He was 
from fifty to sixty years old, and a very honest and 
apparently pious slave. A slave-trader came along 
one day, gathering hands for the south. The old 
master ordered the waiter or coachman to take Paris 
into the back room, pluck out all his gray hairs, rub 
his face with a greasy towel, and then had him 



106 



APPENDIX. 



brought forward and sold for a young man. His 
wife consented to go with him, upon a promise from 
the trader that they should be sold together, with 
their youngest child, which she carried in her arms. 
They left two behind them, who were only from four 
to six or eight years of age. The speculator collected 
his drove, started for the market, and, before he left 
the state, he sold that infant child to pay one of his 
tavern bills, and took the balance in cash. This was 
the news which came back to us, and was never 
disputed. 

I saw one slave mother, named Lucy, with seven 
children, put up by an administrator for sale. At first 
the mother and three small children were put up to- 
gether. The purchasers objected : one says, " I want 
the woman and the babe, but not the other children ;" 
another says, " I want that little girl ; " and another, 
" I want the boy." " Well," says the administrator, M I 
must let you have them to the best advantage." So 
the children were taken away ; the mother and infant 
were first sold, then child after child — the mother 
looking on in perfect agony ; and as one child after 
another came down from the auction block, they 
would run and cling, weeping, to her clothes. The 
poor mother stood, till nature gave way ; she fainted 
and fell, with her child in her arms. The only sym- 
pathy she received from most of the hard-hearted 
monsters, who had riven he heart-strings asunder, 
was, " She is a d — d deceitful bitch ; I wish she was 
mine ; I would teach her better than to cut up such 
shines as that here." When she came to, she moaned 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS; 



107 



wofully, and prayed that she might die, to be relieved 
from her sufferings. 

I knew another slave, named Nathan, who had a 
slave woman for a wife. She was killed by hard 
usage. Nathan then declared he would never have 
another slave wife. He selected a free woman for a 
companion. His master opposed it violently. But 
Nathan persevered in his choice, and in consequence 
was sold to go down south. He returned once to see 
his wife, and she soon after died of grief and disap- 
pointment. On his return south, he leaped from the 
boat, and attempted to swim ashore ; his master, on 
board the boat, took a gun and deliberately shot him, 
and he drifted down the current of the river. 

On this subject of separation of families, I must 
plant one more rose in the garland that I have 
already tied upon the brow of the sweet Mrs. Ban- 
ton. The reader cannot have forgotten her ; and in 
the delectable business of tearing families asunder, 
she, of course, would have a hand. A slave by the 
name of Susan was taken by Mrs. Banton on mort- 
gage. She had been well treated where she was 
brought up, had a husband, and they were very 
happy together. Susan mourned in bitterness over 
her separation, and pined away under the cruel hand 
of Mrs. Banton. At length she ran away, and hid 
herself in the neighborhood of her husband. When 
this came to the knowledge of Mrs. B., she charged 
her husband to go for " Suke," and never let her see 
his face unless she was with him. " No," said she, 
" if you are offered a double price, don't you take it. 



108 



APPENDIX. 



I want my satisfaction out of her,- and then you may 
sell her as soon as you please. " Susan was brought 
back in fetters, and Mr. and Mrs. B. both took their 
satisfaction ; they beat and tortured poor Susan till 
her premature offspring perished, and she almost 
sank beneath their merciless hands, and then they 
sold her to be carried a hundred miles farther away 
from her husband. Ah ! slavery is like running the 
dissecting knife around the heart, among all the 
tender fibres of our being. 

A man by the name of Bill Myers, in Kentucky, 
went to a large number of auctions, and purchased 
women about forty years old, with their youngest 
children in their arms. As they are about to cease 
bearing at that age, they are sold cheap. The chil- 
dren he took and shut up in a log pen, and set some 
old worn-out slave women to make broth and feed 
them. The mothers he gathered in a large drove, 
and carried them south and sold them. He was 
detained there for months longer than he expected ; 
and, winter coming on, and no proper provision 
having been made for the children, many of them 
perished with cold and hunger, some were frost- 
bitten, and all were emaciated to skeletons. This 
was the only attempt that I ever knew for gathering 
young children together, like a litter of pigs, to be 
raised for the market. The success was not such as 
to warrant a repetition on the part of Myers. 

Jockey Billy Barnett had a slave-prison, where he 
gathered his droves of husbands, fathers, and wives, 
separated from their friends : and he tried to keep 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 



109 



up their spirits by employing one or two fiddlers to 
play for them, while they danced-over and upon the 
torn-off fibres of their hearts. Several women were 
known to have died in that worse than Calcutta 
Black Hole of grief. They mourned for their chil- 
dren, and would not be comforted, because they 
were not 

How are the slave cabins usually built ? — They 
are made of small logs, about from ten to twenty feet 
square. The roof is covered with splits, and dirt is 
thrown in to raise the bottom, and then it is beat 
down hard for a floor. The chimneys are made of 
cut sticks and clay. In the corners, or at the sides, 
there are pens made, filled with straw, for sleeping. 
Very commonly, two or three families are huddled 
together in one cabin, and in cold weather they sleep 
together promiscuously, old and young. Some few 
families are indulged in the privilege of having a few 
hens or ducks around them ; but this is not very 
common. 

What amount of food do slaves have in Ken- 
tuckyl — They are not put on allowance; they 
generally have enough of corn bread ; and meat 
and soup are dealt to them occasionally. 

What is the clothing of a slave for a year ? — - 
For summer, he has usually a pair of tow and linen 
pants, and tw r o shirts of the same material. He has 
a pair of shoes, a pair of woolsey pants, and a round 
jacket for winter. 

The account current of a slave with his master 
stands about thus : — 
10 



110 



APPENDIX. 



Ichabod Live-Without-Work, in account with 

John Work- Without-Pay. 

Dr. 

To one man's work, one year, $100 00 

Contra, Cr. 
By 13 bushels of corn meal, at 10 cents, . . $1 30 



" 100 lbs. mean bacon and pork, at 1£ cents, 1 50 
" Chickens, pigs, &c, taken without leave, 

say, 1 50 

M 9 yds. of tow and linen, for shirts and 

pants, at 12^ cents, 1 12£ 

u 1 pair of shoes, 1 50 

u Cloth for jacket and winter pants, 5£ yds., 

at 2 shillings, 1 84 

« Making clothes, 1 00 

" 1 Blanket, 1 00 

44 2 Hats or caps, 75 

$11 514 



" Balance due the slave every year, $88 48£ 



The account stands unbalanced thus till the great 
day of reckoning comes. 

Now, allow that one half of the slaves are capable 
of labor ; that they can earn, on an average, one half 
the sum above named ; that would give us $50 a year 
for 1,500,000 slaves, which would be seventy -five 
millions as the sum robbed from the slaves every 
year!! " Woe unto him that useth his neighbor's 
service without wages ! " Woe unto him that buildeth 
his house by Iniquity, " for the stone shall cry out of 
the wall, said the beam out of the timber shall an- 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 



Ill 



swer it!" "Behold, the hire of the laborers, who 
have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept 
back by fraud, crieth ; and the cries of them which 
have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of 
Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, 
and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as 
in a day of slaughter ." 

Have you ever known a slave mother to hill her 
own children ? — There was a slave mother near 
where I lived, who took her child into the cellar 
and killed it. She did it to prevent being sepa- 
rated from her child. Another slave mother took 
her three children and threw them into a well, and 
then jumped in with them, and they were all drowned. 
Other instances I liave frequently heard of. At the 
death of many and many a slave child, I have seen 
the two feelings struggling in the bosom of a mother — 
joy, that it was beyond the reach of the slave mon- 
sters, and the natural grief of a mother over her child. 
In the presence of the master, grief seems to pre- 
dominate ; when away from them, they rejoice that 
there is one whom the slave-driver will never tor- 
ment. 

How is it that masters kill their slaves, when they 
are worth so much money ? — They do it to gratify 
passion ; this must be done, cost what it may. Some 
say a man will not kill a horse worth a hundred dol- 
lars, much less a slave worth several hundred dollars. 
A horse has no such will of his own, as the slave 
has ; he does not provoke the man, as a slave does. 
The master knows there is contrivance with the 
slave to outwit him ; the horse has no such con- 



112 



APPENDIX. 



trivance. This conflict of the two wills is what 
makes the master so much more passionate with his 
slave than with a horse. A slaveholder must be mas- 
ter on the plantation, or he knows the example would 
destroy all authority. 

WJiat do they do with old slaves, who are past 
labor ? — Contrive all ways to keep them at work tili 
the last hour of life. Make them shell corn and pack 
tobacco. They hunt and drive them as long as there 
is any life in them. Sometimes they turn them out 
to do the best they can, or die. One man, on moving 
to Missouri, sold an old slave for one dollar, to a man 
not worth a cent. The old slave was turned out to 
do the best he could ; he fought with age and starva- 
tion a while, but was soon found, one morning, starved 
to death, out of doors, and half eaten up by animals. 
I have known several cases where slaves were left to 
starve to death in old age. Generally, they sell them 
south, and let them die there ; send them, I mean, 
before they get very old. 

What makes them wash slaves in salt and water 
after they whip them 1 — For two reasons ; one is to 
make them smart, and another to prevent mortifica- 
tion in the lacerated flesh. I have seen men and 
women both washed after they had been cruelly 
beaten. I have done it icith my own hands. It was 
the hardest work I ever did. The flesh would crawl, 
and creep, and quiver, under my hands. This slave's 
name was Tom. He had not started his team Sun- 
day morning early enough. The neighbors saw that 
Mr. Banton had work done on the Sabbath. Dal ton, 
the overseer, attempted to whip him. Tom knocked 



QUESTIONS 



AND 



ANSWERS. 



113 



him down and trod on him, and then ran away. The 
patrols caught him, and he was whipped — three hun- 
dred lashes. Such a back I never saw; such work I 
pray that I may never do again. 

Do not slaves often say that they love their mas- 
ters very much ? — Say so ? yes, certainly. And this 
loving master and mistress is the hardest work that 
slaves have to do. When any stranger is present, we 
have to love them very much. When master is sick, 
we are in great trouble. Every night the slaves 
gather around the house, and send up one or two to 
see how master does. They creep up to the bed, and 
with a very soft voice, inquire, " How is dear massa? 
O massa, how we want to hear your voice out in the 
field again! " Well, this is what they say up in the 
sick room. They come down to their anxious com- 
panions. " How is the old man ? " " Will he die 1 " 
" Yes, yes ; he sure to go, this time ; he never whip 
the slave no more." " Are you sure? Will he die?" 
" O yes ! surely gone for it, now." Then they all 
look glad, and go to the cabin with a merry heart. 

Two slaves were sent out to dig a grave for old 
master. They dug it very deep. As I passed by, I 
asked Jess and Bob what in the world they dug it so 
deep for. It was down six or seven feet. I told them 
there would be a fuss about it, and they had better 
fill it up some. Jess said it suited him exactly. Bob 
said he would not fill it up ; he wanted to get the old 
man as near home as possible. When we got a stone 
to put on his grave, we hauled the largest we could 
find, so as to fasten him down as strong as possible. 

Another story illustrates the feeling of the slaves 
10* 



- 



114 



APPENDIX. 



on taking leave of their masters. I will not Touch 
for the truth of it ; but it is a story slaves delight to 
tell each other. The master called the slave to his 
sick bed. "Good-by, Jack; I have a long journey to 
go ; farewell." " Farewell, massa ! pleasant journey ; 
you soon be dere, massa — all de way down hill! n 
Who are the patrols? — They are men appointed 
by the county courts to look after all slaves without a 
pass. They have almost unlimited power over the 
slaves. They are the sons of run-down families. The 
greatest scoundrel is always captain of the band of 
patrols. They are the offscouring of all things ; the 
refuse, the fag end, the ears and tails of slavery ; the 
scales and fins of fish ; the tooth and tongues of ser- 
pents. They are the very fool's cap of baboons, the 
echo of parrots, the wallet and satchel of polecats, the 
scum of stagnant pools, the exuvial, the worn-out skins 
of slaveholders; they dress in their old clothes. They 
are, emphatically, the servants of servants, and slaves 
of the devil : they are the meanest, and lowest, and 
worst of all creation. Like starved wharf rats, they 
are out nights, creeping into slave cabins, to see if 
they have an old bone there; drive out husbands 
from their own beds, and then take their places. 
They get up all sorts of pretences, false as their 
lying tongues can make them, and then whip the 
slaves and carry a gory lash to the master, for a piece 
of bread. 

The rascals run me w r ith their dogs six miles, one 
night, and I was never nearer dead than when I 
reached home that night. I only escaped being half 
torn to pieces by the dogs, by turning their attention 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, 



115 



to some calves that were in the road. The dogs are 
so trained that they will seize a man as quick as any 
thing else. The dogs come very near being as mean 
as their masters. 

Cyrus often suffered very much from these 
wretches. He was hired with a man named Baird„ 
This man was reputed to be very good to his slaves. 
The patrols, therefore, had a special spite toward 
his slaves. They would seek for an opportunity to 
abuse them. Mr. Baird would generally give his 
slaves a pass to go to the neighbors, once or twice a 
week, if requested. He had been very good to 
Cyrus in this respect, and therefore Cyrus was un- 
willing to ask too often. Once he went out without 
his pass. The patrols found him and some other 
slaves on another plantation without any passes. The 
other slaves belonged to a plantation where they were 
often whipped ; so they gave them a moderate pun- 
ishment and sent them home. Cyrus, they said, they 
would take to the woods, and have a regular whip- 
ping spree. It was a cold winter night, the moon 
shining brightly. When they had got into the woods, 
they ordered him to take off his outside coat, then 
his jacket ; then he said he had a new vest on ; he 
did not want that whipped all to pieces. There were 
seven men standing in a ring around him. He 
looked for an opening, and started at full speed. 
They took after him, but he was too spry for them. 
He came to the cabin where I slept, and I lent him a 
hat and a pair of shoes. He was very much excited ; 
said they were all around him, but couldn't whip 
him. He went over to Mr. Baird, and the patrols 



116 



APPENDIX. 



had got there before him, and had brought his 
clothes and told their story. It was now eight or 
nine o'clock in the evening. Mr. Baird, when a young 
man, had lived on the plantation of Mr. Logan, and 
had been treated very kindly by mother. He re- 
membered this kindness to her children. When 
Cyrus came in, Mr. Baird took his clothes and 
handed them to him, and told him, " Well, boy, 
they came pretty near catching you." Cyrus put 
on his clothes, went into the room where the patrols 
were, and said, " Good evening, gentlemen. Why, 
I did not think the patrols would be out to-night. I 
was thinking of going over to Mr. Reed's ; if I had, 
I should have gone without a pass. They would 
have caught me, sure enough. Mr. Baird, I wish 
you would be good enough to give me a pass, and 
then I won't be afraid of these fellows." Mr. Baird 
enjoyed the fun right well, and sat down and wrote 
him a pass ; and the patrols started, and had to find 
the money for their peach brandy somewhere else. 

There were several other times when he had but a 
hair-breadth escape for his skin. He was generally 
a little too shrewd for them. After he had outwitted 
them several times, they offered a premium to any 
one who would whip him. 

Hoto do slaves get information of what is doing 
in the free states ? — In different ways. They get 
something from the waiters, that come out into the 
free states and then return with their masters. Per- 
sons from the free states tell them many things ; the 
free blacks get something ; and slaves learn most of 
all from hearing their masters talk. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 



117 



Don't slaves that run away return sometimes ? — • 
Yes; there was one returned from Canada, very 
sorry he had run away. His master was delighted 
with him ; thought he had him sure for life, and 
made much of him. He was sent round to tell how 
bad Canada was. He had a sermon for the public, — 
the ear of the masters, — and another for the slaves. 
How many he enlightened about the best way to get 
there, I don't know. His master, at last, was so sure 
of him, that he let him take his wife and children 
and go over to Ohio, to a camp-meeting, all fitted out 
in good style, with horse and wagon. They never 
stopped to hear any preaching, till they heard the 
waves of the lakes lift up their cheerful voices 
between them and the oppressor. George then wrote 
an affectionate note to his master, inviting him to 
take tea with him in Canada, beyond the waters, the 
barrier of freedom. Whether the old people ever 
went up to Canada, to see their affectionate children, 
I have not learned. I have heard of several instances 
very much like the above. 

If the slaves were set free, would they cut the 
throats of their masters ? — They are far more likely 
to kill them, if they don't set them free. Nothing 
but the hope of emancipation, and the fear they 
might not succeed, keeps them from rising to assert 
their rights. They are restrained, also, from affection 
for the children of those who so cruelly oppress them. 
If none would suffer but the masters themselves, the 
slaves would make many more efforts for freedom. 
And, sooner or later, unless the slaves are given free, 
they will take freedom, at all hazards. There are 



118 



APPENDIX. 



multitudes that chafe under the yoke, sorely enough. 
They could run away themselves, but they would 
hate to leave their families. 

Did the slaves in Kentucky hear of the etnancipa- 
tion in the West Indies ? — They did, in a very short 
time after it took place. It was the occasion of great 
joy. They expected they would be free next. This 
event has done much to keep up the hopes of the 
slave to the present hour. 

What do slaves think of the piety of their mas- 
ters ? — They have very little confidence in them 
about any thing. As a specimen of their feelings on 
this subject, I will tell an anecdote of a slave. 

A slave, named George, was the property of a man 
of high standing in the church. The old gentleman 
was taken sick, and the doctor told him he would 
die. He called George, and told him if he would 
wait upon him attentively, and do every thing for 
him possible, he would remember him in his will : he 
would do something handsome for him. 

George was very much excited to know what it 
might be ; hoped it might be in the heart of his mas- 
ter to give him his freedom. At last, the will was 
made. George was still more excited. The master 
noticed it, and asked what the matter was. " Massa, 
you promise do something for me in your will. Poor 
nigger ! what massa done for George 1" " O 
George, don't be concerned : I have done a very 
handsome thing for you — such as any slave would 
be proud to have done for him." This did not satisfy 
George. He was still very eager to know what it 
was. At length the master saw it necessary to t*ll 



■ 



QUESTIONS AND ^ANSWERS. 



119 



George, to keep him quiet, and make him attend to 
his duty. " Well, George, I have made provision 
that, when you die, you shall have a good coffin, and 
be put into the same vault with me. Will not that 
satisfy you, George? " " Well, massa, one way I am 
satisfied, and one way I am not." " What, what/' 
said the old master, " what is the matter with that ? " 
" Why," says George, " I like to have good coffin 
when I die." " Well, don't you like to be in the 
same vault with me and other rich masters?" 
" Why, yes, massa, one way I like it, and one way I 
don't." " Well, what don't you like ? " " Why, I 
fraid, massa, when de debbil come take you body, 
he make mistake, and get mine." 

The slaves uniformly prefer to be buried at the 
greatest possible distance away from master. They 
are superstitious, and fear that the slave-driver, hav- 
ing whipped so much when alive, will, somehow, be 
beating them when dead. I was actually as much 
afraid of my old master when dead, as I was when 
he was alive. I often dreamed of him, too, after he 
was dead, and thought he had actually come back 
again, to torment me more. 

Do slaves have conscientious scruples about taking 
things from their masters ? — They think it wrong 
to take from a neighbor, but not from their masters. 
The only question with them is, " Can we keep it 
from master ? " If they can keep their backs safe, 
conscience is quiet enough on this point. But a 
slave that will steal from a slave, is called mean as 
master. This is the lowest comparison slaves know 
how to use: "just as mean as white folks." "No 



120 



APPENDIX. 



right for to complain of white folks, who steal us all 
de days of our life ; nigger dat what steal from nigger, 
he meaner nor all." 

There is no standard of morality in the slave 
states. The master stands before the slave a robber 
and oppressor. His words count nothing with the 
slaves. The slaves are disrobed of the attributes of 
men, so that they cannot hold up the right standard, 
and there is none. The slaves frequently have dis- 
cussions upon moral questions. Sol and Tom went, 
one night, to steal the chickens of a neighbor. Tom 
went up, to hand them down to Sol. While engaged 
in this operation, he paused a minute. " Sol, you 
tink dis right, to steal dese chicken from here ? " 
u What dat you say, Tom 1 " " I say, you tink him 
right to steal dese chicken, Sol?" " What you come 
talk dat way, now, for ? Dat quession you ought 
settle 'fore you come here." " Me did tink about 
it, but want to hear what you say, Sol. Don't you 
tink it kind of wrong to take dese here chicken ? " 
" I tell you, Sol, no time for 'scuss dat now. Dat is 
de great moral question. Make haste ; hand me 
down anudder one ; let us git away from here 'fore 
de daylight come." 

Do you think it was right for you to run away, 
and not 'pay any thing for yourself? — I would be 
willing to pay, if I knew who to pay it to. But when 
I think it over, I can't find any body that has any 
better right to me than myself. I can't pay father 
and mother, for they are dead. I don't owe Mrs. 
Banton any thing for bringing me up the way she 
did. I worked five or six years, and earned more 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 



121 



than one hundred dollars a year, for Mr. K. and 
family, and received about a dozen dollars a year in 
clothing. Who do I owe, then, in Kentucky ? If I 
catch one of the administrators on here, I intend to sue 
him for wages, and interest, for six years' hard work. 
There will be a small bill of damages for abuse ; old 
Kentucky is not rich enough to pay me for that. 

Soon after you came into Ohio, did you let yourself 
to work? — I did. — Was there any difference in 
your feelings while laboring there, and as a slave in 
Kentucky ? — I made a bargain to work for a man in 
Ohio. I took a job of digging a cellar. Before I 
began, the people told me he was bad pay ; they 
would not do it for him. I told them I had agreed 
to do it. So at it I went, worked hard, and got it 
off as soon as possible, although I did not expect to 
get a cent for it ; and yet I worked more readily, and 
with a better mind, than I ever did in Kentucky. If 
I worked for nothing then, I knew I had made my 
own bargain ; and working with that thought made 
it easier than any day's work I ever did for a master 
in Kentucky. That thought was worth more than 
any pay I ever got in slavery. However, I was more 
fortunate than many thought I should be ; through 
the exertions of a good friend, I got my pay soon 
after the work was done. 

Why do slaves dread so bad to go to the south — 
to Mississippi or Louisiana? — Because they know 
that slaves are driven very hard there, and worked to 
death in a few years. 

Are those who have good masters afraid of being 
sold south? — They all suffer very much for fear 
11 



APPENDIX. 



master's circumstances will change, and that he may 
be compelled to sell them to the " soul-drivers," a 
name given to the dealers by the slaves. 

What is the highest price you ever knew a slave to 
sell for? — I have known a man sold for $1465. 
He was a waiter-man, very intelligent, very humble, 
and a good house servant. A good blacksmith, as I 
was told, was once sold in Kentucky for $3000. I 
have heard of handsome girls being sold in New 
Orleans for from $2000 to $3000. The common 
price of females is about from $500 to $700, when 
sold for plantation hands, for house hands, or for 
breeders. 

Why is a black slave-driver worse than a white 
one ? — He must be very strict and severe, or else he 
will be turned out. The master selects the hardest- 
hearted and most unprincipled slave upon the planta- 
tion. The overseers are usually a part of the patrols. 
Which is the worst of the two characters, or officers, 
is hard to tell. 

Are the masters afraid of insurrection? — They 
live in constant and great fear upon this subject. 
The least unusual noise at night alarms them greatly. 
They cry out, " What is that?" " Are the boys 
all in ? " 

What is the worst thing you ever saw in Ken- 
tucky ? — The worst thing I ever saw was a woman, 
stripped all naked, hung up by her hands, and then 
whipped till the blood ran down her back. Some- 
times this is done by a young master, or mistress, to 
an aged mother, or even a grandmother. Nothing 
the slaves abhor as they do thi3. 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 



123 



Which is the worst, a master or a mistress ? — A 
mistress is far worse. She is forever and ever tor- 
menting. When the master whips it is done with ; 
but a mistress will blackguard, scold, and tease, and 
whip the life out of a slave. 

How soon do the children begin to exercise their 
authority ? — From the very breast of the mother. 
I have seen a child, before he could talk a word, 
have a stick put into his hand, and he was permitted 
to whip a slave, in order to quiet him. And from the 
time they are born till they die, they live by whipping 
and abusing the slave. 

Do you suffer from cold in Kentucky ? — Many 
people think it so warm there that we are safe on 
this score. They are much mistaken. The weather 
is far too cold for our thin clothing ; and in winter, 
from rain, sleet, and snow, to which we are exposed, 
we suffer very severely. Such a thing as a great- 
coat the slave very seldom has. 

What do they raise in Kentucky ? — Corn and 
hemp, tobacco, oats, some wheat and rye ; slaves, 
mules, hogs, and horses, for the southern market. 

Do the masters drink a great deal ? — They are 
nearly all hard drinkers — many of them drunkards ; 
and you must not exclude mistress from the honor of 
drinking, as she is often drunk, too. 

Are you not afraid they will send up and catch 
you, and carry you back to Kentucky 1 — They may 
make the attempt ; but I made up my mind, when I 
left slavery, never to go back there and continue 
alive. I fancy I should be a load for one or two of 
them to carry back, any how. Besides, they well 



124 



APPENDIX. 



know that they could not take me out of any state 
this side of Pennsylvania. There are very few in 
New England that would sell themselves to help a 
slaveholder ; and if they should, they w>uld have to 
run their country. They would be hooted at as they 
walked the streets. 

Now, in conclusion, I just want to say, that all 
the abuses which I have here related are necessary, 
if slavery must continue to exist. It is impossible to 
cut off these abuses and keep slavery alive. Now, if 
you do not approve of these horrid sufferings, I en- 
treat you to lift up your voice and your hand against 
the whole system, and, with one united effort, over- 
turn the abominations of centuries, and restore scat- 
tered families to each other ; pour light upon millions 
of dark minds, and make a thousand, yea, ten times 
ten thousand, abodes of wretchedness and woe to 
hail and bless you as angels of mercy sent for their 
deliverance. 



125 



FACTS 

FROM THE PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OF 
MILTON CLARKE. 



General Leslie Coombs, of Lexington, owned a 
man named Ennis, a house carpenter. He had bar- 
gained with a slave-trader to take him and carry 
him down the river. Ennis was determined not to 
go. He took a broadaxe and cut one hand off ; 
then contrived to lift the axe, with his arm pressing 
it to his body, and let it fall upon the other, cutting 
off the ends of his fingers. His master sold him for 
a nominal price, and down he went to Louisiana. 

A slave named Jess, belonging to Deacon Logan, 
went out one Sabbath evening for the same purpose 
that many young men have for making calls on that 
evening. Jack White, a captain of the patrols, fol- 
lowed Jess, and took him out and whipped him, in 
the presence of the family where Jess was making 
his call. The indignation of poor Jess was roused. 
He sought his way by stealthy steps, at night, to the 
barn of Jack White, and touched it with the match. 
Jess was suspected, and his master told him, if guilty, 
he had better own it, and he would send him down 
the river to save him from being hung. Jess was put 
in jail on suspicion Deacon Logan sent his slaves 
11 * 



126 



APPENDIX. 



by night ; they got Jess out of jail ; he was concealed 
by his master for a few days, and then sold for $700, 
and sent down the river. 



HIRED SLAVES. —BAGGING FACTORIES. 



In and around Lexington are numerous factories 
for spinning and weaving hemp bagging. Young 
slaves, from ten to fifteen years old, are employed in 
spinning. They are hired for $20 to $30 a year, 
and their condition is a very hard and cruel one. 
They have a weekly task. So much hemp is weighed 
out; so much filling must be returned, all of the 
right size, and at the proper time. Want of skill, 
mistakes of various kinds, subject them to frequent 
and unmerited stripes. 

An overseer of one of these factories, Tom Monks, 
would tie up his poor boys, and give them from forty 
to fifty lashes. He kept them sometimes yoked with 
iron collars, with prongs sticking out, and the name 
of the owner written on them. Working in these 
factories takes all the life and spirit out of a young 
slave, and he soon becomes little better than an 
idiot. This is the worst kind of slavery in Ken- 
tucky. When the life is thus taken out of these 
poor lads, at the age of eighteen or twenty, they 



HIRED SLAVES. 



127 



are sold for Louisiana. Here a short but bitter 
doom awaits them. 

They are first carried to New Orleans, and put in 
pens. When a purchaser comes and inquires of the 
slave what he can do, he must make pretensions, of 
course, to great skill and ability, or the seller will 
abuse him. But what will be his condition with 
the purchaser, who finds that he cannot do half the 
things he promised? The sugar-planter blames the 
slave. He came from the bag factory, but said he 
was a good field hand ; could hold plough, hoe corn, 
or any other kind of farming work in Kentucky. 
He has lied to his present master, for the benefit of 
his former one. He atones for it by many a cruel 
flogging. When they find one that is very awkward 
and ignorant, the master tells the overseer to " put 
him through for what he is worth ; " " use him up as 
soon as you can ; " " get what you can out of him in 
a short time, and let him die." In a few years, the 
poor fellow ends his labors and his sorrows. 

The bell rings at four o'clock in the morning, and 
they have half an hour to get ready. Men and women 
start together, and the women must work as steadily 
as the men, and perform the same tasks as the men. 
If the plantation is far from the house, the sucking 
children are taken out and kept in the field all day. 
If the cabins are near, the women are permitted 
to go in two or three times a day to their infant 
children. The mother is driven out when the child 
is three to four weeks old. The dews of the morn- 
ing are very heavy, and wet the slaves all through. 
Many, from the upper slave states, die from change of 



128 



APPENDIX. 



climate and diet. At the time of making sugar and 
molasses, the slaves are kept up half the night ; and 
the worst-looking creatures I ever saw were the slaves 
that make the sugar for those sensitive ladies and 
gentlemen, who cannot bear the sight of a colored 
person, but who are compelled to use the sugar made 
by the filthiest class of slaves. 

O, how would Liberty wash away the filth and 
the misery of millions ! Then the slaves would be 
washed, and clothed, and fed, and instructed, and 
made happy ! 

There is another and very different class of slaves 
sent south. When a body servant refuses to be 
whipped, or his master breaks with him for any other 
reason, he is sold south. The purchaser questions 
him, and he tells the truth. " Can you farm ? M "No, 
sir." " What can you do?" " Work in garden, 
drive horses, and work around the house." " Ay ; 
gentleman nigger, are you? Well, you are gen- 
tleman nigger no longer." He is ordered upon the 
plantation, and soon acquires skill to perform his 
task. Always sure to perform all that is required, 
he does not intend to be beaten by any human 
being. The overseer soon discovers this spirit, and 
seeks occasion for a quarrel. The slave will not 
be whipped. A half a dozen overseers are called 
together, and the poor fellow is chained, and whipped 
to the border of his grave. In a week or two, 
the overseer tries his spirit again ; comes into the 
field and strikes him, by way of insult, and the slave 
knocks him down, and perhaps kills him with his 
hoe, and flies for the woods. Then horses, dogs, 



CALLING ON THEIR MASTERS FOR HELP. 129 

overseers, planters, lawyers, doctors, ministers, are 
all summoned out on a grand nigger hunt, and 
poor Bill Turner is shot dead at the foot of a tree, 
and the trumpet sounds at once a triumph and a 
retreat. 

I expect nothing but there may be an attempt made 
to carry me back to slavery : but I give fair warning 
to all concerned, that now, knowing the value of lib- 
erty, I prize it far above life ; and no year of suns 
will ever shine upon my chains as a slave. I can die, 
but I cannot be made a slave again. Lewis says, 
" Amen ! Brother Milton, give me your hand I You 
speak my mind exactly." 



CALLING ON THEIR MASTERS FOR HELP. 



The Frankfort (Ky.) " Commonwealth " publishes 
a rich letter from the Ohio justice of the peace, who 
assisted the kidnappers of Jerry Phinney. It is ad- 
dressed to the person who now has possession of 
Jerry, and calls lustily on him to save the wretched 
justice from the penitentiary. He, and the man who 
taught him that " that is property which the law de- 
clares to be property," ought both to go to the peni- 
tentiary till they can unlearn that diabolical sophism 
The fellow really talks as though it made a vast dif- 



130 



APPENDIX. 



ference in his crime, whether the victim had been 
entangled in a similar manner before. He writes, — 

" I wish you, as a friend, to ascertain if the power 
of attorney, presented to me by said Forbes, is a 
lawful and true one, and if the said Jerry Phinney is 
a slave or not ; for if he is not, it will go very hard 
with us, and is a perjury on the said Forbes, in con- 
sequence of the affidavit he filed with me. 

" And to you, Kentuckians, I appeal for redress 
for the severe treatment we have received, in conse- 
quence of the seizure and conveying off of a slave, 
as I verily and solemnly believe Jerry ; for I cannot 
for one moment believe that said power of attorney 
is a forgery, and that Forbes committed perjury. 

" And we earnestly solicit your aid; for, without, 
the state prison is our doom ; although I acted in 
good faith. 

" The abolitionists are determined that we shall 
be convicted of kidnapping. 

" We are very poor, but defy the world to bring a 
dishonorable act against us, except the one now 
against us, which they deem a great one ; but I deny 
being guilty of any such charge. 

" Unless you aid and assist us, you may rely on it 
that you never need expect an officer, in this sec- 
tion of the country, ever again to touch any thing of 
the kind, for fear of the penitentiary; for prejudice 
and abolitionism are bent to imprison any justice of 
the peace, who dare make an attempt to examine a 
fugitive from labor, and more particularly if he is 
poor, and has not money to carry him through a 
course of law. 



PRESIDENT EDWARDS. A TESTIMONY. 131 

"Prejudice is so great, that I am credibly in- 
formed the governor has issued his proclamation, 
offering a reward of one thousand dollars for the 
apprehension of said Forbes, and Jacob Armatage, 
the young man that went with Forbes; the citizens 
are to pay half of said reward. 

" Please favor me with an immediate answer ; 
and inform me what proof can be had that Jerry 
is a slave, and what relief can be rendered us in 
our distressing case. You may also look for a 
letter from our attorneys, F. J. Mathews and Colo- 
nel N. H. Swayne, as they will address all those 
whose signatures are in said power of attorney, 
which is in their hands at this time; and that is 
the reason I have not given their Christian names. 

" Wm. Henderson, J. P. 

" H. D. Henderson. 

"D. A. Potter." 



PRESIDENT EDWARDS. -A TESTIMONY. 



On the 15th of September, 1791, the younger 
Edwards, then pastor of a church in New Haven, 
preached a sermon before the Connecticut Society for 
the Promotion of Freedom, &c, in which he has the 
following remarks : — 



132 



APPENDIX. 



" The arguments which have been urged against 
the slave-trade, are, with little variation, applicable to 
the holding of slaves. He who holds a slave, con- 
tinues to deprive him of that liberty which was taken 
from him on the coast of Africa. And if it were 
wrong to deprive him of it in the first instance, why 
not in the second ? If this be true, no man has a 
better right to retain his negro in slavery, than he 
had to take him from his native African shores. And 
every man who cannot show that his negro hath, by 
his voluntary conduct, forfeited his liberty, is obliged 
immediately to manumit him. 

" I presume it will not be denied that to commit 
theft or robbery every day of a man's life, is as great 
a sin as to commit fornication in one instance. But 
to steal a man, or to rob him of his liberty, is a 
greater sin than to steal his property, or to take it by 
violence. And to hold a man in a state of slavery, 
who has a right to his liberty, is to be every day guilty 
of robbing him of his liberty, or of man-stealing. 
The consequence is inevitable, that, other things be- 
ing the same, to hold a negro slave, unless he has for- 
feited his liberty, is a greater sin than concubinage 
and forn i cation . 

" To convince yourselves that, your information 
being the same, to hold a negro slave is a greater sin 
than fornication, theft, or robbery, you need only bring 
the matter home to yourselves. I am willing to appeal 
to your own consciousness, whether you would not 
judge it to be a greater sin for a man to hold you or 
your children, during life, in such slavery as that of the 
negroes, than for him to indulge in one instance of 



PRESIDENT EDWARDS. A TESTIMONY. 133 



licentious conduct, or in one instance to steal or 
rob. Let conscience speak, and I will submit to its 
decision." 

If the above remarks were correct in 1791, can they 
be wrong in 1846 ? If our good divines were correct 
in calling slaveholders man-stealers, and slaveholding 
a greater sin in the sight of God than concubinage and 
fornication, what must we think of the moral state or 
the heart of those modern D. D.'s, who are willing to 
receive slaveholders into the church of God, and are 
ready to weave out of their own hearts a theological 
fiction to palliate the enormous evil ? Alas ! C. M 9 
Clay is right, when he says, " The disease is of the 
heart, and not of the head. We tell you, brothers, 
that the American people know well enough that the 
bloody stain is upon them — but they love its taint! 
If we can't arouse the conscience, and ennoble the 
heart, our labor is lost. A seared conscience and a 
heart hardened by sin — these are the grand sup- 
porters of slavery in and out of the church. How can 
these giants be subdued? — From the Charter Oak* 
12 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

FOR A SLAVEHOLDERS' MEETING. 



I PRAYER. 
By Cassius M. Clay. 

Prayer and Slavery. 

There are many men, professing the Christian religion, 
who also profess to believe slavery a divine institution ! 
Now, we have lived thus long, and never yet have heard a 
prayer offered up to God in its behalf! If it is of God, 
Christians, pray for it! Try it; it will strengthen your 
faith and purify your souls. 

O thou omnipotent and benevolent God, who hast 
made all men of one flesh, thou Father of all nations, 
we do most devoutly beseech thee to defend and 
strengthen thy institution, American slavery ! Do 
thou, O Lord, tighten the chains of our black brethren, 
and cause slavery to increase and multiply through- 
out the world ! And whereas many nations of the 
earth have loved their neighbors as themselves, and 
have done unto others as they would that others 
should do unto them, and have broken every bond, 
and have let the oppressed go free, do thou, O God, 
turn their hearts from their evil ways, and let them 



ORDER OF EXERCISES. 



135 



seize once more upon the weak and defenceless, and 
subject them to eternal servitude ! 

And, O God, as thou hast commanded us not to 
muzzle even the poor ox that treadeth out the corn, 
let them labor unceasingly without reward, and let 
their own husbands, and wives, and children, be sold 
into distant lands without crime, that thy name may 
be glorified, and that unbelievers may be confounded, 
and forced to confess that indeed thou art a God of 
justice and mercy ! Stop, stop, O God, the escape 
from the prison-house, by which thousands of these 
"accursed" men flee into foreign countries, where 
nothing but tyranny reigns; anfl compel them to 
enjoy the unequalled blessings of our own free land ! 

Whereas our rulers in the Alabama legislature have 
emancipated a black man, because of some eminent 
public service, thus bringing thy holy name into 
shame, do thou, O God, change their hearts, melt 
them into mercy, and into obedience to thy will, and 
cause them speedily to restore the chain to that un- 
fortunate soul ! And, O God, thou Searcher of all 
hearts, seeing that many of thine own professed fol- 
lowers, when they come to lie down on the bed of 
death, and enter upon that bourn whence no trav- 
eller returns, — where every one shall be called to 
account for the deeds done in the body, whether they 
be good or whether they be evil, — emancipate their 
fellow-men, failing in faith, and given over to hard- 
ness of heart and blindness of perception of the truth, 
do thou, O God, be merciful to them and the poor 
recipients of their deceitful philanthropy, and let the 
chain enter into the flesh and the iron into the soul 
forever ! 



APPENDIX, 



II. HYMN. 

PARODY. 

Come, saints and sinners, hear me tell 
How pious priests whip Jack and Nell, 
And women buy, and children sell, 
And preach all sinners down to hell, 
And sing of heavenly union. 

They'll bleat and baa, dona like goats, 
Gorge down black sheep, and strain at motes, 
Array their backs in fine black coats, 
And seize their negroes by their throats, 
And choke, for heavenly union. 

They'll church you if you sip a dram, 
And damn you if you steal a lamb ; 
Yet rob old Tony, Doll, and Sam, 
Of human rights, and bread and ham — 

Kidnapper's heavenly union. 

They'll talk of heaven and Christ's reward, 
And bind his image with a cord, 
And scold and swing the lash abhorred, 
And sell their brother in the Lord 
To handcuffed heavenly union. 

They'll read and sing a sacred song, 
And make a prayer both loud and long, 
And teach the right and do the wrong ; 



ORDER OF EXERCISES. 137 

Hailing the brother, sister throng, 
With words of heavenly union. 

We wonder how such saints can sing, 
Or praise the Lord upon the wing, 
Who roar and scold, and whip and sting, 
And to their slaves and mammon cling, 
In guilty conscience union. 

They'll raise tobacco, corn, and rye, 
And drive and thieve, and cheat and lie, 
And lay up treasures in the sky, 
By making switch and cowskin fly, 
In hope of heavenly union. 

They'll crack old Tony on the skull, 
And preach and roar like Bashan bull, 
Or braying ass of mischief full ; 
Then seize old Jacob by the wool, 
And pull for heavenly union. 

A roaring, ranting, sleek man-thief, 
Who lived on mutton, veal, and beef, 
And never would afford relief 
To needy sable sons of grief, 
Was big with heavenly union. 

Love not the world, the preacher said, 
And winked his eye and shook his head ; — 
He seized on Tom, and Dick, and Ned, 
Cut short their meat, and clothes, and bread, 
Yet still loved heavenly union. 
12 * 



138 



APPENDIX. 



Another preacher, whining, spoke 
Of one whose heart for sinners broke; — 
He tied old Nanny to an oak, 
And drew the blood at every stroke, 
And prayed for heavenly union. 

Two others oped their iron jaws, 
And waved their children-stealing paws ; 
There sat their children in gewgaws; 
By stinting negroes' backs and maws, 
They keep up heavenly union. 

All good from Jack another takes, 
And entertains their flirts and rakes, 
Who dress as sleek as glossy snakes, 
And cram their mouths with sweetened cakes ; 
And this goes down for union. 



IH. SERMON. 
By Old Lorenzo. 

Lord, what is wealth ? It will not stay p 
But ever flies away, away, 

As restless waters roll ; 
No sort of goods, beyond the grave, 
Will ever meet its owner, save 

A faithful negro's soul. 

Brethren, did you ever think of the importance 
of laying up treasures in heaven ? What is gold, or 
houses, or land, or earthly honors ? Will they pur- 



ORDER OF EXERCISES. 



chase happiness here? Will they secure heaven 
hereafter? When you " shuffle off this mortal coil," 
all these things will become as dross, worthless as the 
sediments of a blacksmith's forge. You tell me, you 
are going to buy up a store of good works. But 
what will that avail you. Can you plead your good 
works at the bar of heaven ? Will good works save 
you? Be not deceived with such a fatal delusion. 
How are you going to get your good works per- 
formed here on earth, to heaven? I tell you, you 
must have available funds there. They have got a 
bank up here in the moon. Suppose you could get 
one of their bills — what would it be worth here? It 
might be worth something as a curiosity, but as a 
medium of commerce, it would be worthless as a raor. 
So of good works; you can't get them to heaven. 
They are a sort of bank stock, valuable on earth, to 
be sure, and " nowhere else but there," A draft in 
heaven, on the Bank of Good Works, located here on 
earth, would not sell for its cost in white paper. 
This laying up good works, to purchase an inherit- 
ance in heaven, is like bottling jack-o'-lanterns to 
light up pandemonium. 

My hearers, I see you look discouraged. Despair 
sits brooding on your hearts, " If good works will 
not save us," I seem to hear you ask, " what will ? " 
Well, I'll tell you : — you must take something that 
you can get to heaven ; that's plain. You must buy 
niggers. Niggers have souls, and when they die, if 
they are Orthodox niggers, they go right off to heaven. 
But, mind you, they must be Orthodox; if they are 
not, your fat will be in the fire. First, get them con- 



140 



APPENDIX. 



verted to the gospel of submission. Preach to them 
often, from the text " Servants, obey your masters." 
You will lose nothing by it. If you want to sell them, 
you can recommend them then, as Christians, and get 
your money back again ; or, if you prefer, you can 
flog the souls out of them, and lay up a treasure in 
heaven. Just think of it, Deacon Ashley. Suppose 
yourself knocking at heaven's gate, and the old turn- 
key, St. Peter, demanding, "Who comes there ?" 
" Deacon Ashley," you will reply. " What claim do 
you present to an entrance here ? " inquires Peter. 
Well, now, you see, if you have no claim, you 
can't get in ; so you up and say, " I have property 
here." " Property here ? " asks Peter, in apparent 
surprise, though I warrant you he knows all about it ; 
14 what property ? " You will say, " There was my 
man Caesar, a member of our church, whom I shot 
ten years ago, when he attempted to run away. I 
paid eight hundred dollars for him. I suppose he is 
here." " Yes," Peter says, " Caesar is here. Walk 
in, deacon ; where a man's treasure is, there must he 
be a_so." 

So you see the immense importance of owning 
slaves. Our hopes of everlasting salvation hang on 
the institution of slavery ; and as McDuffie said, (I 
think 'twas Mac,) it is the chief corner-stone of our 
republican edifice. When I look at it in this light, 
and think of the mad efforts that are now made to 
abolish this heaven-ordained institution, and thus se- 
cure the destruction of the only free government on 
earth, and the endless misery of all its inhabitants, 
my very blood boils with horror at sight of an aboli- 



ORDER OF EXERCISES. 



141 



tionist. To rob a man of his purse on earth, is in- 
human enough; but to rob him of his treasure in 
heaven is absolutely diabolical. How many millions 
on millions of dollars have been paid for slaves, who 
have gone to heaven ! So many millions of dollars, 
of course, laid up as a treasure there. And these 
fanatics would not only cheat us out of our just 
rights here, but would plunder us of our treasures in 
heaven. I am utterly alarmed at the supineness of 
our church. A few years ago, if an abolitionist at- 
tempted to inculcate his abominable doctrines, you 
stoned him, hissed at him, pelted him with bad eggs, 
poured water on him with fire engines, and even shot 
him dead. You then maintained your character as 
God's church militant. You have now settled down 
as God's church capitulated. May you buckle on 
your armor afresh, and, with brick-bats and unmer- 
chantable eggs, go forth to defend your treasures in 
heaven. Amen. 



142 



OUR COUNTRYMEN IN CHAINS. 



Our fellow-countrymen in chains, 

Slaves in a land of light and law ! 
Slaves crouching on the very plains 

Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war ? 
A groan from Eutaw's haunted wood — 

A wail where Camden's martyrs fell — 
By every shrine of patriot blood, 

From Moultrie's wall and Jasper's welL 

By storied hill and hallowed grot, 

By mossy wood and marshy glen, 
Whence rang of old the rifle-shot, 

And hurrying shout of Marion's men I 
The groan of breaking hearts is there — ■ 

The falling lash — the fetter's clank ! 
Slaves — slaves are breathing in that air 

Which old De Kalb and Sumter drank ! 

What, ho ! — our countrymen in chains ! 

The whip on woman's shrinking flesh ! 
Our soil yet reddening with the stains 

Caught from her scourging, warm and fresh 



OUR COUNTRYMEN IN CHAINS. 



What ! mothers from their children riven ! 

What ! God's own image bought and sold ! 
Americans to market driven, 

And bartered, as the brute, for gold ! 

Speak ! shall their agony of prayer 

Come thrilling to our hearts in vain ? 
To us, whose fathers scorned to bear 

The paltry menace of a chain ? 
To us, whose boast is loud and long 

Of holy Liberty and Light — 
Say, shall these writhing slaves of wrong 

Plead vainly for their plundered Right? 

Shall every flap of England's flag 

Proclaim that all around are free, 
From " farthest Ind " to each blue crag 

That beetles o'er the Western Sea? 
And shall we scoff at Europe's kings, 

When Freedom's fire is dim with us, 
And round our country's altar clings 

The damning shade of Slavery's curse? 

Just God ! and shall we calmly rest, 

The Christian's scorn — the Heathen's mirth 
Content to live the lingering jest 

And by-word of a mocking Earth ? 
Shall our own glorious land retain 

That curse which Europe scorns to bear? 
Shall our own brethren drag the chain 

Which not e'en Russia's menials wear ? 



144 APPENDIX. 

Down let the shrine of Moloch sink, 

And leave no traces where it stood; 
No longer let its idol drink 

His daily cup of human blood : 
But rear another altar there, 

To Truth, and Love, and Mercy given ; 
And Freedom's gift, and Freedom's prayer, 

Shall call an answer down from Heaven ! 




J. G. Whittxer. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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